Patent
A patent is an exclusive right granted to an innovation which is a product or service that generally provides a new way of doing things, or introduce a new technological solution to an issue. To gain a patent, a patent applicant must provide invention details on the technology to the public. Protection shall be provided for a finite time, typically 20 years from the application’s filing date.
The first step in obtaining a patent for the innovation in India is to register a patent application with the Indian Patent Office. To submit a patent application, the patent office may request a series of forms. There are 4 offices in India to file a patent.
Patent Forms
The communication to the patent office is made only through forms because the particular data is required by patent office. There are totally 31 forms for granting patent.
Along with these forms, the applicant add a covering letter at top of the forms requesting to accept this form for filing as application.
Some communication can be made on top of the forms but not without the forms.
There are two ways of filing a patent form:
- Provisional specification or filing
- Complete specification or filing
Provisional filing
The Provisional filing is valid only for one year, after that automatically its get lapsed. This filing is not mandatory. Before one year, the applicant need to file the complete specification.
If case of filing the provisional application as an individual, the filing costs Rs.1750. When filing online mode, we get 10% lesser than offline mode, i.e., Rs.1600. E-filing requires digital signature and its costs around Rs.1800. These signature are provided by many online websites or patent office itself will suggest some digital signature providers. E-mudhra is famous one.
In this provisional specification, 4 forms should be submitted. It is better to submit all these forms together for examination.
Form 1- Application for grant of patent
Form 2- Provisional/Complete Specification
Form 3- Foreign Filing particulars
Form 5- Declaration as to inventorship
Complete filing
The complete specification is valid for 20 years from the date of filing. If your idea is ready, complete filing can be carried out. It is a complete legal document for patent rights.
Form 1 – Application for grant of patent
Form 2 – Provisional/Complete Specification
Form 3 – Foreign Filing particulars
Form 5 – Declaration of inventorship
Form 18 – Request for examination
Form 1- Application for grant of patent
The fees is paid to patent office to simply start initial procedures or grant the application. This form is simple in English and easy to fill. This form consists of details like type of applicant and chose natural person if applicant is individual and title for innovation should only about 15 words.
Form 2- Provisional/Complete Specification
This form declares whether the filing of patent applications is provisional or complete.
Form 3- Foreign Filing particulars
It describes about foreign filing particulars. It is mandatory to inform the status of patent filing to Indian patent office when applicant is filing patent to foreign nations. This form contains details like name of country, date of applicant, applicant number, status of application and date of grant.
Form 5- Declaration of inventor ship
Applicant should declare inventorship to the inventors. Signature of the applicant is required in this form and it states who the applicants for the patent are.
Form 18 – Request for examination
- No examination will be conducted without the submission of form 18. This form 8 costs around Rs.4400 for hardcopy.
- Sometimes, the patent office has request the applicant to submit this form.
- Minimum time for submitting this form will be around 3 months.
- Provisional filing is optional if filed, the complete specification shall be filed within 12 months from date of filing the provisional.
- No extension is allowed.
- No claims are allowed in the provisional specification.
- Cognation of different provisional specifications filed by the same applicant is allowed.
- If applicant go for early publication, form 9 is required and it costs around Rs.2750.
- The total fee costs around Rs.8900 and this fee structure is applicable only for individual’s and start-up companies.
- Instead of submitting form-18, applicant can submit form -18A for faster mode of examination.
Why do I have to file request for Examination?
- Only after receiving the Request for Examination (RTE), the controller transfers the patent application to the patent examiner. The request for examination has to make from the date of priority or filing whichever is earlier.
- The patent examiner examines the patent application and prepares the examination report on the basis of various patentability criteria like:
- Patentable subject matter
- Novelty
- Inventive step
- Industrial application
- Specification enablement
Important two categories
The below two categories alone have additional benefit of examining the forms faster.
- Women
- Startup company
For example, if there is only one women applicant along with 4 men applicants, the form of women will be examined faster for encouragement. Similarly, the start-up companies should belong to technological domain and should be less than 5 years of period of start.
Patent filing fees
The following are the fees subjected to form numbers 1, 2,3,5,9 & 18.
- India-Rs.8900
- US- 1330 USD
- Nepal- 12000 (in Nepalese currency)