India updates Patents Rules to appeal to applicants as filings hit all-time high
Significant changes announced to Rules which took effect last week | Amendments include reduced timeframes and reporting obligations | India’s Patent Office granted over 100k patents in the last 12 months.
India’s Patents Rules, 2024 came into effect last week (March 15) with some significant amendments designed to address some of the major “pain points” experienced by patent applicants in the country and streamline the process from application to grant.
These changes include a shorter timeline for filing a request for examination, reduced reporting obligations for patentees, a streamlined procedure for claiming the benefits of a grace period under section 31 and the introduction of a new ‘Certificate of Inventorship’.
India published the updates to Patents (Amendments) Rules on Saturday (March 16), along with an announcement that its patent office had granted over 100,000 patents in the year from March 15, 2023 to March 14, 2024, following an all-time high of 90,300 applications in 2023.
Design and copyright registrations in India also reached record numbers in the fiscal year 2023-2024.
The country was one of just three to buck the trend of a decline in patent filings through the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) system last year, according to statistics released by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) earlier in March, reporting year-on-year growth for three consecutive years instead.
A simplified process
India said it had updated its Patents Rules to simplify the process of obtaining and managing patents, thereby facilitating a conducive environment for inventors and creators.
Notable changes include the time limit for filing a request for examination being reduced from 48 months to 31 months from the date of priority of application or date of filing an application (whichever is earlier), in accordance with “the fast pace of technology”.
Patentees are now required to file working statements once every three financial years, rather than every year as prescribed previously.
A fee is required for filing a pre-grant opposition and the process has been streamlined, aimed at curbing frivolous or fraudulent pre-grant oppositions and simultaneously encouraging those that are genuine.
The time limit for submitting foreign application filing details in Form 8 has been changed from six months from the date of filing the application to three months from the date of issuance of the first examination report.
Further amendments include a ‘Certificate of Inventorship’ introduced to acknowledge the contribution of inventors in the patented invention, and a new form—Form 31—has been introduced for applicants claiming the 12-month grace period for filing an application under Section 31.
New Delhi-headquartered law firm Lex Orbis said the Rules “address some of the major pain points experienced by patent applicants in the Indian patent procedure”.
