As per the recent data published by The Trade Marks Registry, Mumbai and its branch offices at Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata and Ahmedabad have a backlog of about one lakh contested matters awaiting adjudication as of June 30, 2010. Over the last few years nearly 800,000 trademark applications have been filed. To beat the backlog, the Trademark registry has decided to engage qualified retired government officials as Joint Registrar of Trade Marks on contract basis initially upto March 31, 2012.

A backlog of nearly 40 Joint Registrars exist in the entire country out of which, 11 each are required in Mumbai , Delhi along with Chennai; Ahmadabad and Kolkata requiring 8, 6 and 4 Registrars. The Registry also has laid out brief eligibility criterions for the applicants for the post of Joint Registrars. The applicant should be a law graduate and should be a retired Central or State Government official and should have functioned in judicial or quasi-judicial capacity for a period of atleast 10 years.

The Trademark Registry will pay Rs. 50,000 ($ 1,100) per month for the Joint Registrars.  A Government officer in the Office of the Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks who wished to remain anonymous said “ there is severe talent crunch in the Registry and therefore this recruitment drive. We are unable to examine applications on time and off late we are observing several counterclaims before a trademark is granted. Each of these claims and counter-claim proceedings run into several months”.

The staff shortage staff is not limited to the Trademark registry alone. Speaking at the Confederation of Indian Industry Summit in Delhi earlier this year, Controller General of Patents P H Kurian said “Over 70,000 applications are lying with us and we do not have adequate examiners. The process might take at least 3-4 years to approve and grant intellectual property rights to these applicants”. There is a need of at least 260 people in the patent offices to examine applications and various other processes, he said. “Currently, we have only 150 officers but it is also not possible to increase the manpower overnight,” he said, adding that the problem is being addressed and might be resolved by 2012-13. Current capacity of the set up is to process 15,000 applications per annum, while 70,000 are in the pipeline for examination, Kurian added.