Indian Patent & Design that need to know

Patent

■ Authority： Office of the Controller General of Patents, Designs & Trademarks, CGPDM, generally known as the Indian Patent Office (IPO)

■ Evolution of the Indian Patent Act:

■ Type of Applications:  

1. Provisional Application: invention is still under experimentation stage
2. Ordinary Application: without claiming any priority
3. Convention Application: claiming a priority
4. PCT International Application: Under Patent Cooperation Treaty
5. PCT National Phase Application: national phase application in India
6. Patent of Addition: slight modification
7. Divisional Application: invention may divide and file two or more applications

■ Basic points in Indian Patent application:
1: Important time frame:

Term of patent protection	Right of priority	Average wait time	Grace Period
20 years	Within 12 months	5~6 years	12 months

 
2: Basic requirements & Process:

Language	Hindi/ English
Documents	Legal information, Technical information, Power of attorney, Verified English translation of priority document (if applicable, may be submitted within 31 months)
Criteria of patentability	Novelty、inventive step、Industrial application
Early Publication	Publishes within one month from the date of filing of such request
Expedited examination	The First Examination Report (FER) issues within 1 – 2 months, and the application could grant much faster than the regular route.
Opposition	Pre grant opposition: by anyone within 3 months from publication Post grant Opposition: by any interested person 12 months from the date of grant
Statement of Work	submit each year a statement regarding the commercial scale of use in that respective year.
PCT National Phase entry	31 months from the date of priority
Revocation	Within 1 to 2 years from the grant of patent

3: Patent Prosecution:

Design

Some basic points:

• Grace period: A six-month grace period is available in case of disclosure of the design before filing.
• Reciprocity Application: convention country’s applied design can be filed within six months from the date of priority.
• India follows Locarno Classification system.
• Required documents: The priority documents, in case of a convention application; and an English translation thereof ; A power of attorney
• Multiple embodiments of the same article in a single application is not allowed
• Term: 10 to 15 years (The initial term is ten years which may be further extended for 5 years more)
• Average wait time: around 6 months if all requirements are met.
• Prosecution：