Getting patent within a year is possible in India.
Patent examination backlog is a problem for every country today including India. Like others, The Indian Patent office has realized the same and had taken remarkable steps to reduce the patent examination backlog and disposal time of the patent. The problem of pendency was handled by the dual way, one by increasing strength of patent examiners and secondly introducing expedite examination provision. The new amended patent rules, under which these benefits are being provided, was released on May 16, 2016. However, as per rules 24C, the expedited examination is having a certain restriction. This provision is not open for all but for the applicants, who satisfies any of the criteria listed below:- The patent applicant should be a start-up
- The patent application was a start-up at the time of filing the patent application
- The patent applicant has chosen India as an International Searching Authority (ISA) or as an International Preliminary Examining Authority (IPEA) in a corresponding PCT application.
The expedited examination is not that easy and comes with hefty fees as mentioned below:
There is also a provision of converting your ordinary examination request to expedited examination request if you are eligible for that as per above-mentioned criteria.
Fees for converting ordinary examination request to expedited examination request is as below:
For better understanding, below is the flowchart to get clarity on how this process works in a time-bound manner:
This provision was welcomed very well and utilized by many Start-ups and actual cases are now available with a speedy grant of a patent under this provision. Below, I have listed two cases, two cases where patents are granted in 15 months and in just 9 months from date of filing, respectively.
It is now a reality and gone are the days when one have to wait for years and years to get the final decision on the patent grant. However, still, it is only limited to a few classes of applicants.
As per recent development, a draft is also proposed to amend the qualification for expedite examination by adding a clause of women applicant or one of the applicants is female in December 2018 to encourage female inventors and entrepreneurs to create and protect their IP through Patent.
Further, the Indian patent office has clarified that only a limited number of expedite examination request will be considered every year and as per one notification, it was announced to be 1000. Beyond 1000 request, an application for the expedite examination will not be accepted even though the applicant is eligible to apply for request for examination along with prescribed fees as per Rule 24(C).