Things To Remember While Filing Patent In India

Intellectual Property (IP) has been gaining prominence around the world. The major impact that IP is making in the market is unfathomable. Probably with the large trend of IP awareness the companies are becoming more and more diligent in safeguarding their IP. Effective and timely registration of IPs is now what the company strives for. Companies are not taking any risk when it comes to their IPs, since it is the IP that derives profit for them. Patents are the core asset generator for various industries. Industries and companies earn a lot through licensing and assigning patents. The license and assignment of patents are common practices in the market which makes the licensor earn millions of royalties. With the rapid technology development and increasing users around the world, the trends of licensing and assignment will not be going down anytime soon. The companies not only use these assets for licensing but also use those assets for loan security and sanction.

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With the government initiating more innovative practices, there are multiple initiatives that the government works upon including Make in India, Startup India, Digital India, and Skill India. As mentioned, intellectual property forms the backbone of innovative development and for this, the Cell for IPR Promotion and Management in collaboration with the Office of Controller General of Patents, Design, and Trademark has been continuously working to create and commercialize IP assets.

Things to be aware of while filing Patent Application

For a patent application in India, the applicant must be thorough with the research and development that he undertakes during the preparation of the invention. While undertaking those research and development, the applicant must mention the parts of the invention which are important and form a core area for claiming patent. All such information must be mentioned in the application which must also be followed with a patent specification. The applicant can decide whether to file the provisional specification or directly the complete specification. If the invention is still in the generic stage then it is better to have a provisional specification filed which gives 12 months to the applicant for working more onto the invention. This can be done through Form 2.

After filing the patent application, the patent application will be published after 18 months after the filing date of the application. An earlier publication can be done at the request using Form 9. Every patent application undergoes thorough examination for which a request is made through the filing of Form 18. The examination is done which entails an examiner expert in that area and scrutinizing the application about it being following the patent act. The analysis will be done on a thorough basis and in case of objection, the things will be communicated as the First Examination Report. After the objection is resolved, then the application moves for the granting process.

Things to Remember

The fees need to be paid as per the fees mentioned in the Schedule. The invention must be very clear and the claims mentioned must not be too broad or too narrow. In both cases, the protection becomes very less, hence the applicant must be cautious with it. The claims must be very clear in terms of rights where it must specifically mention the novel part, with the inventive steps and the industrial applicability. Therefore, the claims must correspond to the description/specification and must be interpreted in its light. Providing each detail, for putting the invention into effect might not be possible, nevertheless, the details in the description must correspond to the claim. The technical area of the invention must be made clear to the examiner for helping in performing the official search in that area. The technical field must comply with the invention, where the field must be in existence before.

Author: Saransh Chaturvedi an associate at IP And Legal Filings,  in case of any queries please contact/write back us at support@ipandlegalfilings.com.