KUALA LUMPUR, April 24 (Bernama) — About 7,400 patent applications over the past five years have yet to be processed by the Intellectual Property Corporation of Malaysia (MyIPO).

Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Minister Datuk Shahrir Abdul Samad said the backlog was due to the fact that every application needed quite some time to be processed, while at the same time new applications kept coming in.

“We are quite confident that those 7,400 applications will be processed in the very near future,” he told reporters after launching the National Intellectual Property Day 2008, here Thursday.

Despite the delay, he said, MyIPO had succeeded in improving the patent registration process with 6,983 applications registered last year, compared to 1,578 applications in 2003.

Shahrir said the trademark application in 2007 had also increased with 8,108 applications registered, compared to 5,651, in the previous year.

“The increase shows that the acknowledgement and acceptance from the industry for MyIPO role in registering their patents, trademarks and designs, have increased,” he added.

– BERNAMA