One can avail several benefits by filing a Patent Application before a Patent office for an invention. Patents are territorial rights that provides an ownership over the invention for a period of 20 years. Patent rights gives the owner of the Patent to exclude others from making, selling, using, or offering for sale, and importing the patented invention. To protect the invention in a particular country, a Patent needs to be filed in that particular country.
Types of Patents
There are three types of Patents that includes Design Patents, Utility Patents, and Plant Patents.
Utility Patents
The most important type of patent is a utility patent. The utility patent covers different types processes, machines, composition of matter, and manufactures that are novel, inventive and useful for industrial application. In India, the utility type of Patent application requires filing of a complete specification with claims and drawings.
Design Patents
The second type of patent is a design patent. To obtain a design patent in India, an ornamental design of a product has to be submitted rather than the functionality of the product. The design patent includes shape or configuration of the object.
Plant Patent
The third type of patent is a plant patent. The protection for new and distinctive plant can be obtained by filing a plant patent. Though the plant patents protection is not covered in India, however some other countries like U.S. provides an option filing of the plant patent.
Patent filing procedure in India
- The most important factor in filing a patent application is preparing a patent specification.
- After the filing, the Indian Patent office publishes the Patent Application in Patent journal. The timeline for publication of a patent application is 18 months from the filing date or priority date.
- The publication is followed by “Examination of patent application” by Indian Patent Office. The Applicant has to submit a Request for Examination (RFE) to Patent Office within 48 months of priority date / date of filing.
- The Patent application will go to the examination stage after the publication. Based on the invention and requirement of patent law, an examination report will be issued by the patent office to the Applicant.
- The Applicant has to submit response for the objections within 6 months of date of Issuance of FER, which can be further extended to three months.
- After submission of response to FER by the applicant, the controller then either issue a hearing notice or may grant patent application and publish the patent application in official journal accordingly.
Also read: Patent Filing Procedure In India – An Overview From Filing Till Grant!
Benefits of Patent Filing
- Filing the patent application provides a right to protect ideas or inventions from copying by others.
- Filing a patent application for an invention helps in preventing the competitors from copying the invention or reverse engineering the invention.
- Filing a Patent application benefits a country by growing its economy, as it encourages the public to get the desired products and services at affordable prices.
- Filing a patent application provides an opportunity for new and growing businesses. This is particularly important for Start-ups.
- A granted Patent allows the owner of the Patent to sue the infringers or take legal action against the infringer.
- A granted Patent gives the owner of the Patent a legal monopoly on selling, using, making, distributing, importing, or exporting their creation for a specified time period.
- Patents can be licensed to other parties allowing these parties to exploit the invention in exchange for royalty payments.
- The existence of the Patent Application may serve as a warning to competitors to stay clear of a protected technology.
- Provisional Patent registration provides a priority date for invention as a security and surety that no other person or company could claim the ideas similar to his invention, as soon the Provisional Patent Application get filed.
- By filing a Patent application, a patent owner may explore the option of commercializing the invention.
- By filing a Patent Application inventor can sell a product by labelling the product as ‘Patent pending’.
- Patent rights allow public disclosure that helps the inventor in building up his portfolio along with increasing the business partners, market value, and funds.
- A granted patents in India provides the recognition and credibility of the inventor or his startup or a company in the market.
Patent Application filing trends in India
- In Indian Patent Office, Patents Examination increased by 72.2%.
- The grants in Indian Patent Office increased by 55.3%.
- The final disposal of applications increased by 37.7% Designs.
- Pendency reduced from 8 months in March 2016 to one month in March 2017.
- In India, online filing increased to 90% in patents and 80 % in trademarks.
- In Indian Patent Office, pendency reduced from 14 months to less than 1 month.