This
is most common question raised in minds of anyone who becomes interested in
knowing about patent in India and protecting the invention. This question comes
from every sector and domain imaginable. You may be
- Business owner: with an idea or product to patent
- Research Scientist: with a new concept, formula to patent
- Professional (employee): with new idea for software or business method
- ME or PHD holder: with research project to patent
- Student: with intent to learn more about patents and how they can protect your ideas
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 a
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.
So the best advice would be...
Get
patent professional involved for writing and filing patent
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.
you
can quickly find out how much it cost to get patent in India by reading this
guideline on patent costs.
Procedure
for patent registration in India
Step 1: Write down the invention (idea or concept)
with as much details as possible
Collect all the information about
your invention such as:
- 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.
Step 2: include drawings, diagrams or sketches
explaining working of invention
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.
Step 3: check whether the
invention is patentable subject matter
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)
Step 4a: Patentability search
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.
Step 4b: Decide whether to go
ahead with patent
The
patentability report and opinion help 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 these reports save
lots of time, efforts and cost of the inventor by helping him decide whether to
go ahead with the patent filing process or not.
Step 5: Draft (write) patent
application
In
case you are at very early stage in the research and development for your
invention, then you can go for provisional application. It gives following
benefits:
- Secures filing date
- 12 months of time to file complete specification
- 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 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.
Step 6: Publication of the
application
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.
Step 7: Request for examination
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:
- Patentable subject matter
- Novelty
- Non-obviousness
- Inventive step
- Industrial application
- Enabling
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.
The
first examination report submitted to controller by examiner generally contains
prior arts (existing documents before the date of filing) which are similar to
the claimed invention, and same is reported to patent applicant.
Step 8: respond to objections
Majority
of patent applicants will receive some type of objections based on examination
report. The best thing to do it analyses the examination report with patent
professional (patent agent) and creating a response to the objections raised in
the examination report.
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.
Step 9: clearing all objections
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.
Up
on finding the patent application in order of grant, it is grant to the patent
applicant as early as possible.
Step 10: Grant of patent
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
Get
guidance about your patent requirement
Advantages
of getting patent in India
This
is common question being asked many times by inventors in hope of judging
whether it is really worth to go for filing patent for the invention.
Before
answering this question, I would ask what are the advantages of having a real
estate property on your name?
- You can rent it
- You can sell it
- You can stop others from using it without your permission
- You can use it for your purpose (business or residence)
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.
Advantages
of owning patent would be:
- You own the invention for given time (20 years)
- You can use it to build a business
- Rent it (in this case license it) to existing businesses
- Exclude all others for using, selling, offering for sale and importing your invention in your country
- You can completely sell the patent to other company
Thus,
businesses and inventors can have a complete monopoly and competitive
advantage. for detailed information check Patent attorney worldwide, India
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