Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Patent in India Guideline PDF
Patent in India Guideline PDF
Patent in India
Step by step easy to understand Guideline on
Patent procedure
time line and
cost of getting patent in India
Page 2 of 44
Contents
How to get Patent in India ..................................................................................... 1
How can I get patent in India for my project, idea or a product? ........................... 4
5 things that decide whether your invention can be patented in India ................ 19
Video: Patent procedure, time line and costing a short introduction (14 minutes)
The word “patent” continues to be most sought after word in business and
Research and development community that is being searched over internet for
more information and guidance... Possibly, you are influenced by reading about
patent related news and influenced by the idea of owning intellectual property
right for invention, And you are trying to find information on
What is patent?
Is my idea patentable?
How to apply for patent in India?
How much it costs to get patent in India ?
You can read this information at many places online, in blogs, from government
website on patent and from books. Yet it is not always easy to understand for
every one coming from different background and different mindset. Moreover,
many times questions like these may not have straight forward answers. Like any
other law, Patent Law also involves certain degree of complexity.
You would be amazed to find out the value added by a professional patent agent
or patent attorney when working on your idea and filing patent.
Honestly saying, there are some inventors who have written their patents on their
own, with unbelievable quality of balancing technical and legal aspects of patent,
that it astonishes even experienced patent professionals. But this is rare case,
more often than not people need professional help since patent is not only a
technical document... it is a techno - legal document. Having an experienced
patent professional (patent agent) guiding you through the process of getting
your invention patented can make a large impact to an extent of patent granted
or patent rejected.
Step 1: Write down the invention (idea or concept) with as much details as
possible
Area of invention
Description of the invention what it does
How does it work
Advantages of the invention
Ideally, if you have worked on the invention during research and development
phase you should have something call lab record duly signed with date by you and
respective authority.
The drawings and diagrams should be designed so as to explain the working of the
invention in better way with visual illustrations. They play an important role in
patent application.
All inventions may not be patentable, as per Indian patent act there are certain
inventions that are not patentable explained in detail in(inventions not
patentable)
The next step would be finding out whether your invention meets all patentability
criteria as per Indian patent act? That is,
Novelty
Non-obviousness
Industrial application
Enabling
The detailed explanation for patentability criteria is given here (what are
patentability criteria’s). The patentability opinion is provided by the patent
professionals up on conducting extensive search and forming patentability report.
The patentability report and opinion helps you decide whether to go ahead with
the patent or not, chances are what you thought as novel might already been
patented or know to public in some form of information. Hence this reports saves
lots of time, efforts and cost of the inventor by helping him decide whether to go
ahead with the patent filing process or not.
In case you are at very early stage in the research and development for your
invention, then you can go for provisional specification. It gives following benefits:
After filing provisional application, you secure the filing date which is very crucial
in patent world. You get 12 months of time to come up with the complete
specification, up on expiry of 12 months your patent application will be
abandoned.
When you complete the required documents and your research work is at level
where you can have prototype and experimental results to prove your inventive
step you can file complete specification with patent application.
Filing the provisional specification is the optional step, if you are at the stage
where you have complete information about your invention then you can directly
go for complete specification.
Up on filing the complete specification along with application for patent, the
application is published after 18 months of first filing.
An early publication request can be made along with prescribed fees if you do not
wish to wait till the expiry of 18 months from the date of filing for publishing your
patent application.
Generally the patent application is published within a month form request form
early publication.
The patent application is examined only after receiving request for examination
that is RFE. Up on receiving this request the controller gives your patent
application to a patent examiner who examinees the patent application with
different patentability criteria like:
The examiner creates a first examination report of the patent application upon
reviewing it for above terms. This is called patent prosecution. Everything
happening to patent application before grant of patent is generally called as
patent prosecution.
This is a chance for an inventor to communicate his novelty over prior arts found
in the examination report. The inventor and patent agent create and send a
response to the examination that tries to prove to controller that his invention is
indeed patentable and satisfies all patentability criteria’s.
This communication between controller and patent applicant is to ensure that all
objections raised in the patent application are resolved. (if not the patent will not
be granted ) and the inventor has his fair chance to prove his point and establish
novelty and inventive step over existing prior arts.
The application would be placed in order for grant once it is found to be meeting
all patentability requirements. The grant of patent is notified in the patent journal
which is published time to time.
Get Free preliminary guidance about your patent requirement reach patent
experts agent and companies here
Before answering this question, I would ask what are the advantages of having a
real estate property on your name?
on similar terms, patent is an intellectual property and has all the advantages
stated above, but you need to claim it to be on your name, hence the filing of
patent application for your invention.
There is a difference though, Unlike real estate the patent has the term of 20
years of ownership. after that they are open to be used by anyone.
Hence the Patents system are built to encourage the innovation and growth of
the economy be providing patent winner and exclusive right on the invention
(intellectual property) for limited time.
hence this gives a unique advantage to patent owner which can be leveraged for:
5) Being owner of the patent you have rights to block others from
a) making,
b) using,
technically advance or
economically significant to the existing patents (or prior art)
So, a prior art documents or patents that are already existing can be 99% similar
to your invention Yet, if your invention has either technical advance or economic
significance or both... and you can prove it that your invention is better than
existing ones by means of results comparisons testing and if possible working
model, then there is a strong possibility that you may get patent for your
invention.
The best way to take this judgment is get help from patent professional,
The novelty search (also called as patentability search) is performed for the same
reason,
This patentability search, done right, can yield pretty fantastic results for your
invention;
It can tell you what part of your invention is already covered and what
could be novelty feature...
it can tell you where you can focus you research work to get maximum
level of protection with you patent
Filing of the patent application should be the first priority at any stage of your
research and development, even before you publish the invention and or disclose
it in a speaking or to a group of people. Filing patent in India should be taken at
priority to obtain appropriate protection for your research work.
However, There are instances where you need to disclose the invention before
applying for patent like, discussing with patent professionals, supervisors,
partners, technical assistants etc. Or when you are doing initial analysis of
commercial worth of the invention before applying for patent, In such instances
you need to protect the confidentiality of it by way of signing a Non disclosure
agreement (NDA) by parties to whom you are disclosing the invention.
The best thing to do would be filing a provisional application if you are at early
stage in research and development. This provisional specification discloses the
nature of the invention.
This document helps in securing date of application even if you are not
completely ready with the invention to be protected. You get 12 months of time
to file complete specification and decide whether or not to go ahead with entire
procedure for applying for patent, which is time consuming and costly.
If you could not file the patent application on time, or delayed the step to apply
for patent, following things may happen;
Other inventors doing research work in same field of your invent may file
the application for patent (in India it is first to file system) then you will lose
the opportunity.
Some seek patent protection at initial ideation stage and some seek patent
protection after publication of the invention and displaying it in public without
proper confidentiality measures. And within these two lies intermediate phases of
research.
If you are too early, you may be in a ideation stage and can lose crucial time, since
you might not yet figured out what to do next and no planning exist, so you might
miss opportunities to appropriately commercialize the patent.
©2016 Patent in India website http://patentinindia.com/
Page 16 of 44
And if you are too late, chances are you would lose the priority or even invention
since someone else come up with same patent application before you file one.
Knowing whether you have the invention worth patent protection in India or not
need to address multiple questions before coming to conclusion;
But probably most important of all would be a question that you as an inventor
need to answer is “whether I have sufficient information about my invention
that I can represent in a format in such a way that it can enable a person skilled
in the art can reduce it to practice?”
In other words
“Do I know my invention with such a granular detail that up on reading my patent
on the invention any person who is skilled in the field of my invention can
perform the invention without any difficulty?”
Having said that, there are still ways you can protect your invention even if it is
not completely clear to you. As explained below:
Since you don’t yet know the missing pieces of the information about your
invention and the description of invention is not yet enabling.
Still you can secure the date of priority (which is very important) by going for
provisional specification while applying for patent
In case you are at very early stage in the research and development for your
invention, then you can go for provisional patent application. It gives following
benefits:
Low cost
After filing provisional application, you secure the filing date which is very crucial
in patent world. You get 12 months of time to come up with the complete
specification, up on expiry of 12 months your patent application will be
abandoned.
When you complete the required documents and your research work is at level
where you can have prototype and experimental results to prove your inventive
step you can file complete specification.
Filing the provisional specification is the optional step, if you are at the stage
where you have complete information about your invention then you can directly
go for complete specification.
A provisional specification is not a rough draft; it defines the field of invention and
also defines the scope of the invention to certain extent. Even if you file complete
specification later it does not replace the provisional specification, it still remains
in the record.
The patent office accords the filing date and patent application number to the
provisional specification received.
If the complete specification is not filed within 12 months from the filing date of
provisional specification, the patent application is treated as deemed to have
been abandoned.
How can I find out whether my invention is patentable? This is probably the first
question that may arise in your mind if you are looking to get protection for your
research and development (invention). so let’s see how to patent an idea in India
2. It should be Novel
Patent act in India has specified certain subject matters are not eligible for getting
patent in india. Some of these areas are;
etc, are NOT patentable subject matter in accordance with section 3 and section 4
as per Indian patent act.
Novelty means the information you have written in the specification of your
patent application (subject matter) is not published or know to or available to
public in India or elsewhere before the date of filing of the patent.
In other words, the inventive step means an aspect of the invention that involves
a Technical advance or economic significance or both with respect to existing
knowledge, thus making invention non obvious to a person skilled in the art.
1. Any person, who is ordinary skilled in the art, should be able to reduce
the invention in to practice by the help of the information disclosed in the
patent application.
2. The patent applicants should disclose the Best Mode for practicing the
invention which is known to them at the time of filing the patent
application.
Drafting a patent application is a specialized job and requires both technical (field
of invention) and legal (Indian patent act) understanding.
As you may have heard, patent is a techno-legal document. Many inventors trying
to write patent application on their own writes it from completely technical
perspective. Writing patent application as a technical document without
considering legal aspect may be a mistake which can make your application not
properly covering the scope of the protection. And all the efforts you took for
research and development can go waste.
Hence, right patent professional (patent agent) with appropriate experience can
remarkably add value to patent application.
Patent agent provides maximum possible protection for your invention since
the drafting of patent is done from technical as well as legal perspective.
The claims written in such a way that they provide maximum protection
All possible embodiments and variants are covered
Each claim is supported by description in specification
Use of specific words in description and claims that has specific meaning in
patent law
Inventors who are not experienced in patent law can make some mistakes in
drafting patent specification and may face rejection for failing to comply with
the requirements set by patent law. In this case all efforts by inventor in research
and development may go waste.
How much does getting a patent in India costs? There is no precise and
accurate answer to this question as cost for a obtaining patent is dependent on
multiple factors... What best we can have is range for costs involved in...
©2016 Patent in India website http://patentinindia.com/
Page 23 of 44
There are two elements for cost of getting patent / filing patent in India:
Government fees too, are different for an individual inventor and a company. and
fees for patent application also defers based on number of claims and pages in
the specification. So, a lot of factors need to be considered when talking about
costs involved in getting patent.
to get quick understanding, watch this short and informative video we created
on Patent procedure, time line and costing (14 minutes)
Yet to give you an idea, the cost to file a patent is approximately Rs. 45,000 to
65,000. This is assuming that you have hired a patent (agent) professional for
patent research, writing and filing patent application for your invention.
This cost requires in stages as your invention proceeds from Novelty Search
(about Rs. 15000), Patent drafting and filing in India (about Rs. 30,000) and after
1 to 2 years for responding to office actions if any objections are taken by
controller in examination report on application about your invention, such
response to office actions typically requires (about Rs. 15000).
Note: these costs are mentioned are exemplary and may vary with respect to
patent professionals and companies.
The link below is the fees structure mentioned at the patent office website in
India. http://ipindia.nic.in/ipr/patent/patent_formsfees/Fees.pdf
If you are filing patent on your own, without help from patent agent, then it can
cost much lesser as only fees you are paying is government fees for patent filing
and prosecution.
Here is how you will need charges as per stages in patent filing. We are assuming
you have hired a patent professional in helping you with patent filing, which is
recommended and makes this all patenting efforts worthwhile with his
experience and expertise in techno-legal writing.
This is initial phase when you disclose your invention to the patent professional
(patent agent) by signing a Non disclosure agreement. Here you should submit
each know fact about your invention, description diagrams and experimental
results (if any). Hold nothing back.
The professional charges at this phase range from (Rs 10,000 to Rs.20,000 )
In this phase, patent professional performed an extensive search for prior art in
all possible databases for patent, articles, thesis etc... And builds a patentability
search report based on closest prior art found for your invention.
On reviewing the patentability search report and discovered closest prior arts for
your invention you can take a decision whether to go ahead with patent
application filing.
Your invention needs to have “inventive step” as compared with existing prior art
to be able to qualify for a patent. The inventive step is achieved when your
invention has either ‘technical advance’ or ‘economic significance’ or both over
existing prior arts.
When you decide to go ahead with patent filing next step is writing patent
application also called as patent drafting.
Patent drafting charges range from Rs. 20,000 to 30,000 (professional fees)
Drafting a patent application is a specialized job and requires both technical (field
of invention) and legal (Indian patent act) understanding.
As you may have heard, patent is a techno-legal document. Many inventors trying
to write patent application on their own writes it from completely technical
perspective. Writing patent application as a technical document without
considering legal aspect may be a mistake which can make your application not
worth a lot. And all the efforts you took for research and development can go
waste.
Hence, right patent professional (patent agent) with appropriate experience can
remarkably add value to patent application.
When you done with the review of patent drafted and satisfied with the scope
and technical details in the patent application, you can file the patent application
is prescribed manner. That is with appropriate forms with appropriate fees. You
need to pay fees of Rs. 1600 or 4000 0r 8000 (based on type of applicant) while
submitting the patent application in patent office.
If you do not file request for early publication (fees mentioned in table below) the
patent application will be published on expiry of 18 months.
Request for examination fees is Rs. 4000 or 10000 or 20000 (based on type of
applicant)
The request for examination is to be made within 48 months from the date of
filing the patent application, along with prescribed form and fees. This is the
request made to Indian patent office to examine you patent application.
This is a chance for an inventor to communicate his novelty or inventive step over
prior arts found in the examination report. The inventor and patent agent create
and send a response to the examination that tries to prove to controller that his
invention is indeed patentable and satisfies all patentability criteria’s.
The application would be placed in order for grant once it is found to be meeting
all patentability requirements. The grant of patent is notified in the patent journal
which is published time to time.
Maintaining patent for its entire life time that is 20 years from filing date requires
renewal fees to be paid to patent office as mentioned in link here
http://ipindia.nic.in/ipr/patent/patent_formsfees/Renewal_of_Patent.pdf
No Description
If you are a business owner or entrepreneur and inventor and trying to find
whether to take patent on your name or your company’s name then below are
points you should consider:
The fees structure and cost for applying and maintaining patent:
It costs more to own and maintain patent as a legal entity than as an individual
(natural person) generally it is 4 time more.
application
If you have an investor funding for your business then the investor would always
want the patent on companies name than you name. Even if the inventor enters
at the later stage in your business by funding your company still they can ask to
transfer the patent rights on company name if they are owned by you.
There is nothing like world patent. However there are ways you can protect your
invention in many countries. Some ways are inefficient and expensive while some
ways are efficient and inexpensive and saving lot of rework.
Direct or Paris route: you can directly file separate patent applications at the
same time in all of the countries in which you would like to protect your invention
(for some countries, regional patents may be available) or, having filed in a Paris
Convention country (one of the Member States of the Paris Convention for the
Protection of Industrial Property), then file separate patent applications in other
Paris Convention countries within 12 months from the filing date of that first
patent application, giving you the benefit in all those countries of claiming the
filing date of the first application.
©2016 Patent in India website http://patentinindia.com/
Page 31 of 44
PCT route: you can file an application under the PCT, directly or within the 12-
month period provided for by the Paris Convention from the filing date of a first
application, which is valid in all Contracting States of the PCT and, therefore,
PCT filing is much simpler, easier and more cost-effective than both, direct or
Paris route filings.
The PCT is an international treaty with more than 145 Contracting States. The PCT
makes it possible to seek patent protection for an invention simultaneously in a
large number of countries by filing a single “international” patent application
instead of filing several separate national or regional patent applications. The
granting of patents remains under the control of the national or regional patent
Offices in what is called the “national phase”.
Filing:
Search:
International Publication:
as soon as possible after the expiration of 18 months from the earliest filing date,
the content of your international application is disclosed to the world.
Title of Invention
Field of Invention
Background
Summary of Invention
Brief description of drawings
Description of invention
Examples if any
Specific embodiments if any
Abstract
Claims
Drawing / diagram / flow-chat
You can check some granted patents from website of Indian patent office by
clicking link herehttp://ipindiaonline.gov.in/patentsearch/Search/index.aspx
There are different types of patent application that can be files based on timing,
desired territory for protection and number of inventions.
Ordinary Application
Application for Patent of Addition (granted for Improvement or
Modification of the already patented invention, for an unexpired term
of the main patent)
Divisional Application (in case of plurality of inventions disclosed in the
main application)
Convention application, claiming priority date on the basis of filing in
Convention Countries
National Phase Application under PCT
It has been common conception that once you have an idea worth patenting, the
first thing to do is filing patent application. However this might not be good thing
to do. The patents are as valuable as they are worth in commercial use.
In other words, there has to be a commercial demand for the invention that you
are patenting, there need to be companies, businesses using this invention and
paying you royalties, there has to be opportunity where companies could buy out
your patent (if you wish to sell of course). And this all has to be though through
before taking big financial decisions and filing patent application.
A patent rarely has any value if the commercial worth of the product or
technology cannot be demonstrated and exploited.
This has been the reason for failure for many patentable inventions as the
inventor of the patented invention was unable to exploit them commercially. The
commercial exploitation of patent requires skills and if the inventor does not
possess the required marketing and business management skills for exploiting the
patent, then it would be good idea to bring this talent by having someone with
these skills to your team.
How would you feel, if someone else is misusing your business name?
Or You found out that the name that you are using for your business is
actually registered with some other company
Even worst… You work on your business for so many years to build brand
and loyalty in clients mind and you found out you are infringing a already
registered trademark of someone and you can not use that name for your
business here after !!! such a loss of time, efforts and costs…
Would you like to avoid such devastating scenarios that can hurt your
businesses image and all the hard work you put going waste? Then you need to
look at protecting your business name, identity, brand, logo, image etc. This is
achieved by registering Trademark for your business.
If properly used and promoted, a Trademark becomes the most valuable asset of
a business. hence Trademark registration india
Example of trademarks: Coca cola and Pepsi are two trademarks from same
industry (beverages) which distinctly identifies source or origin of the goods as
well as an indication of quality.
Any person which can be individual, company, proprietor or legal entity claiming
to be owner of the trademark can apply. The application for trademark can be
filed within few days and you can start using “TM” symbol. And the time required
for trademark registry to complete formalities is 8 to 24 months. You may use the
® (Registered symbol) next to your trademark once your trademark is registered
and registration certificate is issued. Once registered a trademark is valid for 10
years from the date of filing, which can be renewed time to time.
This search is to check whether your business name or logo is similar to other
already registered trademarks. Generally trademark agent or attorney conducts
this search with the Trademark Office to check if there are any similar trademarks
already registered under that particular class. There are two kinds of search:
online and offline. It is recommended that you get both the searches done. Once
found to be unique you can proceed to the next step:
Based on the results of the search conducted, the trademark attorney will draft
trademark application, provided that your business name / logo found to be
unique. If someone already has the same or similar trademark, you need to
change yours. Or if you are of opinion that the trademark is rightfully yours and
you are using it since long time even before other party trademark registration.
You can start using ™ symbol as soon as you file the form of trademark
application.
The Trade marks office will first check your application to see if it's already
been taken. If it has, a trademark objection will be raised.
If it has no objection, it makes an advertisement in the Trade Marks
Journal.
If there is no opposition from other businesses in the next four months,
your trademark is registered around six months later.
3. Depending upon the results of the search, the trademark attorney will draft
your trademark application. In case someone already has the same or
similar trademark, you may have to change yours.
4. The trademark attorney will file your trademark application with the
Trademark Office and send you the receipt.
5. After a few days, the trademark attorney will send you the Original
Representation Sheet of your trademark as it has been filed with the
Trademark Office.
For more questions and information or for trademark search, filing, opposition
and registering trademark in India click my trademark requirement .
This firm has team size of 65+ Intellectual property (IP) professionals including
patent agents, trademark agents and attorneys and has offices at Delhi, Mumbai,
Pune and Bangalore. we cater to client requirements on all forms of Intellectual
Property Rights (IPR) including Patents, Trademarks, Designs & Copyrights along
with Contract & Commercial Matters.
Clients of our company: about 2000+ clients including Google, Halliburton, ABB,
Hyundai, Liteon Corporation, FLSmidth, Knorr-Bremse, Mastercard, Fortinet,
Furuno Electric, Larsen & Toubro, Glenmark, Mylan, Haier, Duke University,
Manchester Metropolitan, National University of Singapore, among many others,
Based on the quality of our services and client satisfaction, we have been
recommended and ranked by Legal 500, IAM, Chambers, Managing IP & Asia IP.
Attachments link:
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B_Sx96QNKL-
eSmwwV2Myc3RnOUk&usp=sharing
Once we review the information sent, and would proceed with the project upon
your confirmation.
It takes about 5 days to complete Patentability search report. and about 2 weeks
for writing complete patent application.
Best Regards
Prasad Karhad
Registered Patent Agent India (IN/PA 2352)
Senior Patent Associate
Khurana & Khurana, Advocates and IP Attorneys| IIPRD
Noida (Delhi) . Pune . Mumbai . Bangalore
contact: 08055563001
Mobile: (+91) 8975533075
©2016 Patent in India website http://patentinindia.com/
Page 42 of 44
Email: contact@patentinindia.com
http://patentinindia.com
Bangalore Office:
A-001, Nitesh Central Park, Opp. Astrazeneca Factory,
Near Bagalur Crossing, Off Bellary Road,
Bengaluru-560064 Karnataka,India.
Mumbai Office:
FA27, Lake City Center, Kapurbavdi Circle,
Thane (W), Greater Mumbai - 400607
Maharashtra, India.
Prasad Karhad
Registered Patent Agent India (IN/PA 2352) with bachelors degree in electronics
and telecommunication engineering.
Working in patents and IPR field since 10 years. associated with leading
Intellectual Property firm in India called Khurana & Khurana, Advocates and IP
©2016 Patent in India website http://patentinindia.com/
Page 43 of 44
Attorneys (K&K).
With team of 65+ Intellectual property (IP) professionals including patent agents,
trademark agents and attorneys and offices at Delhi, Mumbai, Pune and
Bangalore, Successfully helping inventors and businesses in securing their
Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) including Patents, Trademarks, Designs &
Copyrights along with Contract & Commercial Matters.
with more than 9000 visitors every month, Patent in India platform continues to
be leading patent consulting platform in India.
Recommended reading:
Provisional patent application is used when the inventor is not ready with the
invention completely and it provides about 12 months of time to complete the
work on invention however you can secure your idea with Indian Patent Office, as
you get receipt from government (patent office) with application number, title of
invention and date of filing. in this way you secure your idea and keep working on
it without any limitation. To know more about how you can protect your
invention even when you are not completely ready with it read this expert article
on when should I consider filing patent in India?
http://patentinindia.com/consider-filing-patent-india/
******