Obtain a Patent in India
If you are an inventor or budding inventor, you might be having lot of questions in your mind before marketing your invention, such as how to obtain patent for my invention? Is my invention patentable? Can I file patent by myself? etc. There are certain basic guidelines are already known to the patent practitioners to help the inventors. This article will help the inventors and entrepreneurs.
Steps
- First ask yourself, "Am I having properly documented/recorded details of my invention in a record such as such as lab notebook?" In a lab notebook, you should have all the information relating to your invention such as area of invention, describing what it is, and how it works, what is the advantage of invention along with any sketches, drawings or photographs. And more importantly, you should have dated and signed in all pages of your lab notebook by your authorized/superior personal. This information’s are essential to disclose invention disclosure to patent attorney/patent agent for obtaining a patent. You may be thrilled to reveal your invention to your friend or third party, but be aware that you should have proper legal instruments such as non-disclosure agreement, before disclosing the invention.
- Test if the invention is patentable or not. All the inventions may not be eligible for patenting. For example, the inventions pertaining to the area of agriculture, horticulture, process for medical treatments, plants, animals, business methods, algorithms, mathematical method, mental act, traditional knowledge and atomic energy listed in section 3 under Indian patent act, are not patentable in India. In addition to the above list, software inventions area are sensitive topic of discussion, more particularly computer program per SE is not patentable in India. However, some other jurisdiction, the software inventions are patentable.
- Find out if it meets the requirements. Apart from the non-patentable inventions, the invention has to satisfy the patent ability requirements such as novelty, non-obvious and industrial application, which was discussed in details how to file patent in India. Patent ability opinions can be obtained from a person those who specialize in obtaining and enforcing patents for inventors. Get signed in non-disclosure agreement with that person, before disclosing the invention for performing the Patent search to know the patent ability of invention.
- Decide whether or not to patent. From the analysis of patent ability, you will be in a position to decide whether to protect the invention under the patent or not. If the invention is not patentable, you may drop to proceed to obtain the patent, otherwise the next step would be drafting the patent application for the invention. The patent application has to be written in specified manner before filing the patent application in Indian patent office. In case your invention is maturing stage, you have the option to file the provisional patent application, and after that you can file the complete patent specification within 12 months from the date of filing of provisional application.
- Wait. After filing your patent application, the patent application is published after 18 months from the date of first filing. If you would like to expedite your patent protection, place a request for early publication and the application will be ordinarily published within a month from the date of request. Next step would be filing a request for examination and the controller assigns the patent application to a patent examiner to scrutinize your invention to verify the invention matter is patentable or not. During the patent prosecution, the examiner submits the examination report, in which he may cite the relevant prior art/ patent, which might negate the claimed invention. The inventor has to analyze the report along with his patent agent to respond the examination report along with providing proper reasoning about his invention for patentable. After meeting the objection raised by the examiner, the application would be placed order for grant and the grant will be notified in Patent journal.
