Violations of RTI Act and Rules on Patent Office website

[karira]

In the RTI Section of the Patent Office Website (Right to Information Act - Patents), besides the basic violations like Application Format, Payee for fees, etc., also has some additional exemptions under Sec 8:

Following information is not available even under the Right to Information Act, 2005 :

• The contents of a patent application upto 18 months till it is published unless and until the applicant makes a request for early publication and the application is published in the official journal of the Patent Office.
• The content of an application (Patent or Designs ) relating to Defence of India and secrecy direction imposed by the competent authority of the Ministry of Defence till the secrecy direction is withdrawn.
• The reports of examiners to the Controller under the patent law is not open to public inspection or be published and such reports shall not be liable to production and inspection in any legal proceeding unless the court certifies that the production or inspection is desirable in the interest of justice.
• An information which is a part or full of the Annual Report of the Controller General under preparation and yet to be placed in the Parliament. The Report can only be available on the approval of the Publication by the Parliament on payment of prescribed price.
• An information which is a kind of statistical information such as how many drug applications have been filed during a particular period or and the like.Such information however is also not to be called an “ information” under the definition of “information” under the “Right to Information Act,2005” .In this connection the related information can be procured or generated from the weekly published Official Journal of the Patent Office.
• Other information, which is supposed to remain confidential viz, names of question paper setter or evaluators etc in the periodical Patent Agent Examination.

In fact, in the penultimate item above, the patent office has given its own definition of "information" !

[sandeepbaheti]

The second and last points are still ok, but the remaining are totally absurd.

[colnrkurup]

Mr.Karira,
How can the the Controller General of Patents Designs and Trade Marks amend the RTI Act ?

[karira]

I am amazed at the brazenness of all this.

A lawyer I know came to me for help in drafting a RTI application to the Patents Department for matter he had pending with them for a long time. When I visited the website for obtaining details of the PIO, I discovered this.

Just wonder why can't even Senior Bureaucrats at least make an effort to read the RTI Act for only one time and also follow it ?

I am going to wait for some time and hope that someone from that office sees this.

Otherwise , like the Vice President's Secretariat, I am filing a Complaint under Sec 18(1)(f) to the CIC.