need for reforms in patent law

Tarun Mathur's report on Patent Litigation Trends in India has some interesting findings, including:

• although the number of patents filed in India is continuing to grow, the number of decided patent litigation suits is quite low - about 1 per year over the past 20 years;
• there have only been 8 decided cases in total since 2000;
• (if you believe there's sufficient data to tell), then overall the Indian courts seem to be anti-patent, with 33 decisions against patentees and 14 for them;
• most Indian patent litigation has involved small entities;
• surprisingly, litigation tended to occur early in the life of the patent (typically within the first 5 years) [presumably this is linked to the item immediately above];
• patents with more claims were more likely to be the subject of litigaiton.

The report provides a lot of useful background about patent litigation in India and the applicable law.

The report makes the following recommendations for change: 

• creation of a specialist patent court (along the lines of the US CAFC);
• the public should be allowed to observe patent trials;
• panel of judges should be used in each patent case;
• patent law should be a compulsory unit in law courses;
• steps should be taken to strnegthen the ability to enforce patents in India.