India, EU sign agreement to share data on patent

India and the European Union sign an agreement for sharing data on patent and training of examiners.

India and the European Union on Tuesday signed an agreement for sharing data on patent and training of examiners.

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"The agreement will benefit India as it would make available the huge database of European Patent Office, while examining patent applications," an official release said.

The programme would run from mid-2007 to mid-2008 and provide training at the European Patent Office for 10 senior patent examiners from India, and training by three EPO experts to 20-30 patent examiners in India.

The EU would set up five terminals at any one of the patent offices across India, the release added.

The agreement between the Office of the Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks (CGPDTM) and the European Patent Office (EPO) was signed by Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion Secretary Ajay Dua and European Patent Office President Alain Pompidou.

Work Plan includes programmes for Human Resource development, Automation and Data Exchange between the two offices.