After its successful launch in Hyderabad, the Pharmaceutical Export Promotion Council (Pharmexcil) will soon launch the 'Patent Facilitation Centre' in Mumbai which will provide the first-hand information on IPR related issues prevailing in other countries. The project is being implemented with the support of department of pharmaceuticals.
The patent facilitation centre would be a good support to the industry, especially to the small and medium exporters, as the centre will provide the information and knowledge on patents, status of patents of pharmaceutical products vis-à-vis other countries, patent search, interpretation and search based intellectual property related technology and prior art search, invention mining, patentability opinion, guidance and opinion of IM launch, infringement analysis and opinion and freedom to operate opinions. It would also provide training and short term courses in IPRs.
Pharmexcil executive director Dr PV Appaji said that the centre in Hyderabad, which was launched in July this year, is working well as it is providing the much needed information to the industry in the IPR related issues. He said the third such centre would be established at NIPER, Mohali and it will be established by March, 2009.
The role of the 'Patents Facilitation Centres' will be that of helping the members in filing patents in other countries. It will simply guide the members about the processes to be followed while trading with other countries so that they do not land up in any IPR related issues.
Well-known patent expert Dr Gopakumar Nair would be the advisor at the patent facilitation centre and there will also be two analysts at the facilitation centre.
The setting up of a special ''Patents Facilitation Centres' will prove to be a big relief to the pharmaceutical industry, especially the small and medium units which have to export their products to such countries where the IPR related issues prevailing in that country are not easily accessible. In the absence of information about the laws prevailing in these exporting nations, the small and medium scale companies very often infringe laws leading to prolonged legal battle.
Though the big companies can afford to set up their own IPR Cells in their individual companies, the small and medium companies may not be able to set up such cells due to financial constraints. The 'Patents Facilitation Centres' being established by the Pharmexcil will come to the rescue of such companies by disseminating information regarding the IPR in each and every exporting country.