Patent registration in India. India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the second-most populous country, the seventh-largest country by land area, and the most populous democracy in the world. Accordingly, many businesses want to enter this market and one of the most important preparations a business needs to take before expanding to this country is to learn the procedure of patent registration in India.
Who can file a patent in India?
Any person, either alone or jointly with other people can file a patent registration in India. The people who are eligible to file a patent in India include:
- The true and first inventor;
- True and first inventor’s assignee;
- The representative of the deceased true and first inventor his/her assignee.
For clarification, an assignee can be a natural person or a legal person, e.g. a registered company. In the application, the applicants are required to fill in the basic information such as the name, address, and nationality of the true and first inventor, etc. along with other information.
Necessary documents for patent registration in India
Necessary documents for patent registration in India include:
- Description of the invention to be registered;
- Information of the patent owner;
- Author information (who created the invention);
- A set of drawings or photos of the inventions;
- Declaration of patent use in India.
Types of patent application in India
There are mainly 3 types of patent applications in India, include:
- Provisional application – This type of patent application is filed when an invention requires additional time for development;
- Ordinary or Non-Provisional application;
- Convention application – This type of patent application allows the applicant to claim priority in all the convention countries.
The procedure of patent registration in India
Before filing a patent application in India, the right-holders should perform a detailed patentability search on the intellectual property regulator of India’s database to check the invention’s patentability. The applicant can use this link to conduct the patentability search in India.
The examination of the patent application in India
After submission of the patent application, it will go through the examination process by an examiner. This process will follow the chronicle order, which means that the patent application that was filed first will be examined first.
The application will be transferred to the patent officer who will examine the application to ensure the application doesn’t violate the patent act and rules. After that, the patent officer will conduct a thorough search of the relevant technology.
Publication of patent application
Patent applications filed with the Indian patent office will be published in the official patent journal. The whole process from the date of filing to the registration of the patent in India normally takes 18 months to complete. In addition, if deemed necessary, the applicant can speed up the publication of their patent by filing a request in form 9 for early publication.
You can see a list of India IP firms here.