Model Question Paper- Patent Agent Examination. Part I (100 Marks)

Transcription

1 Model Question Paper- Patent Agent Examination (Under Section 126 of the Patents Act, 1970, as amended) Paper I Total Marks: 100 Time: 2 hrs Instructions: This paper consists of two parts: The first part (Paper I) is Objective type; Multiple Choice Questions having one and /or more than one option correct. You are required to pick the right answer(s) from amongst given choices. You must answer all questions in this part. The second part (Paper II) is descriptive and requires written answers. Please read the questions very carefully before answering them. Please also divide your time appropriately so that you are able to complete all answers in time. Part I (100 Marks) Each question below carries two marks. Please answer all the questions. Instructions: Choose the right answer by indicating your choice in the answer sheet given to you against the relevant question number. If there are two good answers for a question, you must choose both. Illustratively, if the right answer to Question (1) is c, you must write: Question (1) =c. Similarly if question 1 has two right answers ( b and c ), then you must indicate: Question (1) = b and c. In the above example, if you pick only b and not c, you will lose half the mark for that question. However, if you choose a wrong option, you will not get any marks. Illustratively, if you choose a, b and c in the above example, you will not get any marks.

2 1. Deposition of biological material at IDA shall be done: a. Before filing the patent application b. 3 months from the date of fling patent application c. 6 months from the date of fling patent application d. Anytime from the date of fling patent application e. None of above 2. Petition for revocation of a patent shall be filed at: a. IPO Kolkata b. Any of the branch office c. IPAB d. High Court e. All of the above 3. Once a compulsory license is granted a. It can be terminated by the controller b. Termination only on valid grounds c. The compulsory license holder has to be heard d. All of the above 4. As per the Indian Patent Act, a PCT national phase application must be filed within a. 31 months from date of priority b. 30 months from date of priority c. 28 months from date of priority d. 12 months from date of priority 5. After a patent has been granted, the first renewal fee shall by paid within a. 12 months from recording grant of patent in register with an extension of 6 months b. 6 months from recording grant of patent in register with an extension of 6 months c. 9 months from recording grant of patent in register with an extension of 6 months d. 3 months from recording grant of patent in register with an extension of 6 months

3 6. Every complete specification shall: a. Fully and completely describe the invention b. Disclose best mode of performing invention c. End with claims d. Shall have abstract e. All of above 7. In Indian patent office, the patent application can be filed in language: a. Hindi b. Bhojpuri c. English d. Tamil e. All of the above 8. Register of patents can be rectified by the: a. Controller b. Appellate board c. High Court d. Supreme court e. All of the above 9. A suit for patent infringement can be filed in: a. High Court b. Supreme Court c. District Court d. IPAB e. All of the above 10. In a suit of infringement of a patent, every ground on which it may be revoked under Section 64 shall be available as ground of defense: a. Yes b. Yes, except need to disclose geographical origin of biological sample because patent application is already examined c. No. Post-grant opposition grounds can also be defense d. No. Pre-grant opposition grounds can also be defense

4 11. Exclusive Patent licensee can: a. Exclude everyone including patentee from using patented invention b. Exclude all third parties from using patented invention c. Initiate a law suit without permission of patentee d. Claim damages from the Court in case of infringement e. All of the above 12. Controller has powers of a civil court and he can: a. Arrest a person in case of infringement with help of Police b. Summon a person c. Examine a person on oath and take evidence on oath d. Amend patent specifications 13. Information regarding working of invention shall be given to the Controller: a. Only if patented invention is commercialized b. In respect of every calendar year within 3 months of the end of each year c. In respect of every financial year within 3 months of the end of each year d. Either by patentee or licensee 14. In a process patent, burden of proof in case of infringement lies on: a. Only the Plaintiff b. Defendant c. On IPAB d. On the District Court 15. Statement and undertaking regarding foreign filing shall be submitted at the time of filing complete specification only if: a. The applicant has already filed application in other countries b. Applicant is from any foreign country c. Applicant is from a convention country d. It is a PCT application e. All of above

5 16. Pre-grant opposition can be filed by way of representation by: a. Central Government b. Person interested c. Any person including Government d. Only Indian citizen e. All of above 17. In case the application was imposed secrecy direction then the request for examination shall be made within a. 9 months b. 48 months c. 18 months d. 6 months 18. If the application for a patent is made within 12 months after the opening of exhibition notified by the central govt., it will not be deemed as anticipated a. If the description of the invention in a paper read by the true and first inventor before a learned society b. Description of the invention is published with the consent of true or first inventor in the transaction of a learned society c. If the description of invention has been amended as it required by controller**** d. All of the above 19. A patent of addition shall be granted a. Before grant of patent for the main invention. b. At time of grant of patent for the main invention. c. After grant of patent for the main invention. d. After revocation of main patent..

6 20. Patent may be revoked by central government U/S 66 if a. the patent is related to atomic energy b. the patent is prejudicial to public c. the patent was obtained wrongfully from the person who was entitled to file a patent d. patent was obtained on a false representation e. all of the above 21. In some case of infringement, the burden of proof shift to defendant if a. Subject matter of the patent is a process for obtaining a new product. b. Product made by the process are substantial identical c. The patentee through reasonable efforts has been unable to determine the process actually used d. All of the above 22. Exclusive licensee is a. A legal person b. Who has been granted a license including the patentee c. Who has been given a permission to use patent to the exclusion of all others d. Who has no right to institute a suit in respect of any infringement e. All of the above Match the following: f. None of the above Prior to publication, the patent application is kept confidential at the patent office The publication of patent application Publication of patent application after expiry of 18 months Examination of patent application Information and undertaking regarding foreign applications Steps involved in substantive examination are Request for expedite examination of patent application A request for withdrawing the patent application before the grant of patent Search for anticipation by previous publication and by prior claim Declaration as to a Small entity

7 State the time limit Model Question Paper Any person u/s 25(1) may oppose the application by means of opposition Any interested person may give notice of opposition to the controller u/s 25(2) The minimum time period for the grant of patent from date of publication of application The time period for representation of opposition from date of publication of patent application(r-55(1) Time limit for filing post-grant opposition Time limit to file reply statement and evidence u/r 58 For filing notice of post grant opposition For filing representation by way of opposition u/s 25(1) If a patentee desires to contest the opposition, shall leave evidence in support of his case within a period of True Or False An advocate not registered as patent agent can represent his client in front of controller and IPAB. Business method is patentable in India There is reduction in fee if a patent application is filed electronically in India Minor can file for a patent as applicant if he has evidence of being true and first inventor Compulsory license is always exclusive in nature The name of interested person is entered in the register of patents as interested person A patent application can be withdrawn only before publication Any person can file pre-grant opposition Examination report prepared by examiner is published periodically by patent office. Opposition board is constituted only in case of Post-grant opposition

8 Model Question Paper- Patent Agent Examination (Under Section 126 of the Patents Act, 1970, as amended) Paper II Total Marks: 100 Time: 3 hours Each question below carries four marks each. Instructions: This part contains eight questions. Please answer any five questions from amongst them. Your answer must be brief and to the point. While answering the questions, you are expected to support your answer by giving reasons and citing the relevant sections and rules in the Indian Patent Act. 1. Indian Patent office notifies that patentee, assignee and licensee shall submit the details to the Controller regarding working of the patented invention. Help your client to understand the meaning of working of invention and guide him in submitting the details to the Controller. Explain him the consequences of not submitting such information in time. 2. X has a patent for a process with a priority date of He gets to know that his patented process is being used by a company ABC Pvt Ltd. X. The company ABC Pvt Ltd contacts you to safeguard his interest and suggest him on the course of action. As a patent agent, what all issues would you look into? 3. Ganesh has a patent on a drug formulation in India and he has licensed the same to an Indian firm that is manufacturing and selling the same in Indian market for last 3 years. Ganesh gets to know that a company called USP Pharma is manufacturing and selling the same formulation in USA and recently started exporting it to India also. Can Ganesh take any action against USP Pharma? 4. Rahul, a 11 th standard student, 17 years old during the process of completing his chemistry project gets an idea to convert agriculture waste into ethanol. He wants to file a patent for the process. Being a minor, can he file a patent in his name. As a patent agent, suggest him on the various provisions of Patent Act he needs to know before filing a patent.

9 5. A provisional patent application was filed in Indian patent office by 3 inventors, A, B and C on 25 th February Now D and E also joined them and contributed in the complete development of the invention. At the time of filing complete specification, A, B and C want to add the names of Dand E also as inventors. Suggest them the procedure. 6. Your client received the notification of grant of a patent from the patent office on 5 th November The date of filing patent is 25 th July The controller has invited the client to pay the renewal fee. Calculate the total renewal fee payable and communicate to the client the mode of payment along with the dead-lines, if any. 7. Your client is a citizen of Australia and files a patent application in his country on 15 th January 2006, followed by PCT application on 25 th June He gets PCT search report and wants to amend 2 of the claims at the time of filing patent in India at national phase. Suggest him if he can amend the claims and file the same in India. What all documents he needs to submit to Indian patent office at the time of filing his application? 8. An Indian company called Turbosys invents a process to generate electricity using a radioactive element called Plutonium. The process is extremely efficient compared to prior art. The company wants to file patent only in USA and not in India. Brief them about the procedure. Each question below carries ten marks. Instructions: This part contains five questions. Please answer any four questions from amongst them. Your answer must be brief and to the point. While answering the questions, you are expected to support your answer by giving reasons and citing the relevant sections and rules in the Indian Patent Act. 1. Rohit is a student of ABC University and as a result of his project work, he invents a process to degrade polythene. He submits project report to the University and gets his degree certificate. After 2 years he gets to know that a patent has been filed by the University based on his invention but his name doesn t appear in the patent application as an inventor. How would you protect his interest? 2. Your client, a national of USA files a patent application in USA and wants to file the same in India claiming priority from US application. Suggest him what all documents and fee are required specifying the time lines for various actions.

10 3. You filed a provisional patent application on behalf of your client on 26 th November 2009 and complete specification on 24 th November On 27 th November 2010, your client shows his interest in filing PCT application. Advice him if he can still file PCT application or not. 4. Madan files provisional application on 5 th June 2009 at Indian Patent Office and PCT application in May However, he fails to file complete specification in India within 12 months from the date of priority. Advice him is if he can still file application in India claiming priority from his provisional application filing in India? 5. You have received a letter from patent office imposing secrecy directions under Section 35 of the Act on the application for patent filed for your client. Write a letter to your client explaining the consequences thereof and further actions which you are likely to take on the same. This part contains two questions of twenty marks. Please answer both the questions. Question 1 After reading the below specification carefully, please: i. Draft at least 5 claims; ii. iii. Provide an appropriate title to the specification Draft a suitable abstract Field of the invention This invention relates to liquid detergent compositions. In particular, it relates to aqueous detergent compositions suitable for use as general purpose household cleaning compositions. Background of the invention: General purpose household cleaning compositions for hard surfaces such as metal, glass, ceramic, plastic and linoleum surfaces, are commercially available in both powdered and liquid form. Powdered cleaning compositions consist mainly of builder or buffering salts such as phosphates, carbonates, silicates etc., and although such compositions may display good inorganic soil removal, they are generally deficient in cleaning ability on organic soils such as the grease/fatty/oily soils typically found in the domestic environment. Liquid cleaning compositions, on the other hand, have the great advantage that they can be applied to hard surfaces in heat or concentrated form so that a relatively high level of surfactant material is delivered directly to the soil. Moreover, it is a rather more straightforward task to incorporate high concentrations of anionic or nonionic surfactant in a liquid rather than a granular composition. For both these reasons, therefore, liquid cleaning compositions have the potential to provide superior grease and oily soil removal over powdered cleaning compositions.

11 Nevertheless, liquid cleaning compositions still suffer a number of drawbacks which can limit their consumer acceptability. Thus, they generally contain little or no detergency builder salts and consequently they tend to have poor cleaning performance on particulate soil and also lack "robustness" under varying water hardness levels. Although oversudsing may be controlled to some extent by incorporating a suds-regulating material such as hydrophobic silica and/or silicane or soap, this in itself can raise problems of poor product stability and homogeneity. Summary The present invention provides liquid detergent compositions which are stable homogeneous fluent liquids having excellent suds control across the range of usage and water hardness conditions and which provide excellent shine performance together with improved cleaning characteristics both on greasy/oily soils and on inorganic particulate soils with little tendency to cause filming or streaking on washed surfaces. According to the present invention there is provided an aqueous liquid detergent composition characterized by: Detailed description a) from about 1% to about 20% of a synthetic anionic, nonionic, amphoteric or zwitterionic surfactant or mixture thereof, b) from about 0.5% to about 10% of a mono-or sesquiterpene or mixture thereof, the weight ratio of surfactant:terpene lying in the range of 5:1 to 1:3 and c) from about 0.5 to about 10% of a polar solvent having a solubility in water at 25 C. in the range from about 0.2% to about 10%. Preferred terpenes are mono- and bicyclic monoterpenes, especially those of the hydrocarbon class, which can be selected from terpinenes, terpinolenes, limonenes and pinenes. Highly preferred materials of this type include d-limonene, dipentene, α-pinene, β-pinene and the mixture of terpene hydrocarbons obtained from the essence of oranges (eg. cold-pressed orange terpenes and orange terpene oil phase ex fruitjuice). Terpene alcohols, aldehydes and ketones can also be used, however, the alcohols, in particular, providing valuable but unexpected improvements in viscosity regulation when incorporated in the compositions of the invention at a level, preferably, of from about 1% to about 3%, more preferably from about 1.5% to about 2.5%. The terpene is used in combination with a polar solvent (i.e. containing at least one hydrophilic group) having a solubility in water of from about 0.2% to about 10% by weight (g/100 g solution), preferably from about 0.5% to about 6% by weight, for example benzyl alcohol. The compositions of the invention also preferably contain from about 0.005% to about 2%, more preferably from about 0.05% to about 0.7% of an alkali metal, ammonium or alkanolammonium soap of a C 13 -C 24, especially C 13 -C 18, fatty acid. Preferably, the fatty acid is fully saturated, for example, by hydrogenation of naturally occurring fatty acids. Addition of the soap, particularly to compositions containing terpene hydrocarbons, is found to provide significant synergistic enhancement in the suds-suppression effectiveness of the system. A calcium sequestrant is also desirable in the present compositions, providing not only cleaning advantages on particulate soil, but also, surprisingly, advantages in terms of product homogeneity and stability. The sequestrant component is a water-soluble inorganic or organic polyanionic sequestrant having a calcium ion stability constant at 25 C. of at least about 2.0, preferably at least

12 about 3.0, the weight ratio of surfactant:sequestrant preferably lying in the range from about 5:1 to about 1:3, especially about 3:1 to about 1:1. In preferred embodiments the sequestrant has an anion valence of at least 3 and is incorporated at a level of from about 0.5% to about 13% by weight. The composition itself preferably has a ph in 1% aqueous solution of at least about 8.0. Suitably, the sequestrant can be selected from the water-soluble salts of polyphosphates, polycarboxylates, aminopolycarboxylates, polyphosphonates and amino polyphosphonates and added at a level in the range from 1 to 9%, especially 2 to 8%, more especially 3 to 7% by weight of the composition. Adjustment of the sequestrant level and surfactant:sequestrant ratio within the above specified ranges is important for providing composition of optimum stability. A notable feature of the instant compositions is the suds-suppression effectiveness of the terpenes in liquid compositions based on ampholytic or zwitterionic surfactants. Thus, it is notoriously difficult to control the sudsing behaviour of these surfactants in a cost-effective manner using conventional suppression agents such as soaps, waxes etc. The terpenes are thus particularly valuable in this respect. Question 2 A client meets you and provides you with information below. Please use the said information to write a complete patent specification ready to be filed before the Indian Patent Office. The invention relates to a process for converting 1-phenylethanol into styrene, which process involves: Description (1) contacting a feed containing 1-phenylethanol, organic acid and 2-phenylethanol with a catalyst to obtain a product containing styrene, and (2) removing ester compounds based on 2-phenylethanol and organic acid from the product of step (1), in which process the feed of step (1) has a molar ratio of organic acid to 2-phenylethanol of at least 1:10. The present invention relates to a process in which feed comprising 1-phenylethanol (also known as α-phenylethanol or methyl phenyl carbinol) is contacted with catalyst. A commonly known process comprises the manufacture of styrene and propylene oxide starting from ethylbenzene and propene. In general such process involves the steps of (i) reacting ethylbenzene with oxygen or air to form ethylbenzene hydroperoxide, (ii) reacting the ethylbenzene hydroperoxide thus obtained with propene in the presence of an epoxidation catalyst to yield propylene oxide and 1- phenylethanol, and (iii) converting the 1-phenylethanol into styrene by dehydration using a suitable dehydration catalyst. A problem of 2-phenylethanol is that it is less easily converted into styrene while it cannot easily be separated from 1-phenylethanol by distillation. This means that 2-phenylethanol tends to build up in the dehydration unit. It has now been found that 2-phenylethanol can be removed in a simple and effective way. It was found that 2-phenylethanol reacts more readily than 1-phenylethanol with organic acids such as benzoic acid in the dehydration unit. Organic acids can be added to the reaction mixture comprising 1-phenylethanol and 2-phenylethanol. However, generally organic acids are produced in the

13 preparation of ethylbenzene hydroperoxide and/or propylene oxide. Therefore, the propylene oxide manufacturing process can be simplified in a further aspect in that organic acids do not need to be removed or need to be removed to a lesser extent in the process preceding the dehydration unit. Therefore, the present invention now relates to a process for converting 1-phenylethanol into styrene, which process comprises: (1) contacting a feed comprising 1-phenylethanol, organic acid and 2-phenylethanol with a catalyst to obtain a product comprising styrene, and (2) removing ester compounds based on 2-phenylethanol and organic acid from the product of step (1), in which process the feed of step (1) has a molar ratio of organic acid to 2-phenylethanol of at least 1:10. In the present invention, ethylbenzene, 1-phenyl-ethanol, 2-phenylethanol and styrene can contain substituents. The substituents zeal be either on the phenyl ring or on the ethyl or ethanol or ethylene chain. Most specifically, the compounds are unsubstituted ethylbenzene, 1-phenylethanol, 2-phenylethanol and styrene. The feed comprising 1-phenylethanol, organic acid and 2-phenylethanol for use in the present process will generally have been obtained by a process comprising: (b) oxidation of ethylbenzene to obtain a reaction product containing ethylbenzene hydroperoxide (c) optionally washing the reaction product of step (a), (d) reacting at least part of the reaction product containing ethylbenzene hydroperoxide with propene to yield propylene oxide and aryl alcohol, and (e) removing propylene oxide from the product obtained in step (c). The product of step (d) can suitably be used as feed for step (1) of the process according to the present invention. ***