'Patents for incremental innovations or Utility Patent Models and its benefit to Micro Small and Medium Enterprise (MSME) needs to be studied and initiated," said P H Kurian, Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trademarks, Intellectual Property Office at a National Conference on Intellectual Property for MSMEs, policy maker and facilitating agencies.

This is being organized on Tuesday by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in collaboration with World Intellectual Property Organization and Ministry of MSME.

Utility models are sometimes referred to as "petty patents" or "innovation patents."

The requirements for acquiring a utility model are less stringent than for patents. The term of protection for utility models is shorter than for patents and varies from country to country (usually between 7 and 10 years without the possibility of extension or renewal).

In fact according to the Thomson-Reuters report Incremental Utility Patent had helped China forge ahead its unprecedented progress. China has 1.5 lakh Incremental Utility Patents.

Large Inflow of Trade Marks Applications might lead to increase in infringement cases added Kurian.

"It was advised that Indian companies should register themselves now to avoid any infringement cases later. Shortly, a more effective search engine  for  Indian Trade Mark Database will be made accessible to Public by the Indian Patent Office," he said.

There has been a tenfold increase in Patent applications in ten years. This year, patent applications are likely to touch 40,000 (In the year 2000, there were just 4,000 applicants). Out of this 17% are Indian applicants and MSMEs are just 2 %. This year there has been 1000 more Indian applications compared to last year. There is a huge need for MSMEs to make IP part of their marketing strategy.

So far 142 applications for Geographical Indicators have been registered and there is a potential of 3000 GIs. Interestingly, Cheriyal Paintings, a famous scroll Painting from AP was recently awarded a GI Certificate and this was facilitated by CII APTDC. It is a Unique Model for Micro Enterprise Cluster Interventions since it has the smallest group of Producers.

Dharmendra Prakash, Joint Development Commissioner, Ministry of MSME said that direct linkage of IPR is needed with the marketing organization in tune with the business strategy.

Guriqbal Singh Jaiya, Director, Small and Medium Sized Enterprises Division, World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), Geneva, said at his Inaugural address that IP is relevant and useful for everybody including start-ups as it provides credibility, trust and helps build branding, which leads to better pricing for their products and on a sustainable basis & facilitates wealth Creation.

Anjan Das, said that the right ecosystem is existing and a conducive Platform is needed to develop synergy between various players & it needs to be positioned Strategically for the benefit of MSMEs.