A very common question any inventor comes across to safeguard their invention is- ‘How can I get patent in India for my project idea or concept?’ You may be a business owner with an idea or product. Patent a research by scientist with a new concept formula. Patent for a professional or an employee with a new idea for software. A masters or PhD holder with research project to be patented or a student with intent to learn more about patents and how they can protect your ideas. Process of patent has always been complicated in India and required many tie-ups across the world with different patent agencies.
Patents are also essential for making a economy stronger by protecting its inventions. This requires a strong will from the government and recent policies by Modi Government has made registering and getting a patent super fast and reducing cost by 80%. This single policy will boost other initiatives like Make in India and further encourage Indian inventors to work for their economy.
What is patent? The patent is grant of exclusive rights to the owner to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, selling or importing patented invention. What that means in simple terms is if you get the patent for your invention you can stop others from making, selling, importing your invention without your permission. Hence one can earn significant money by licensing or selling the patent. So why you should consider patenting your invention owning an intellectual property like patent is just like owning any other property like real estate? Here are some advantages of owning patent. You own the invention patented for 20 years of time. You can use the patented invention to build business around it. You can rent it, in this case, licensed it to an existing businesses or you can completely sell the patent to other company.
Does it sound exciting? Let’s see some interesting information about most commonly asked questions like the procedure and steps for getting paid into cost for obtaining patent in India as an individual or as a company and the time required for getting Patent. Very first step in patent filing in India journey is invention disclosure. Write down the invention that is your idea or concept with as much details as possible like the area and the nature of the invention description of the invention. What it does, how does it work, similar existing solutions or products like your invention. Advantages of your invention over existing solutions. You should be including drawing diagrams or sketches explaining working of the invention. This information in its raw format is called invention disclosure. Before we proceed with these steps here is an important note about the cost of obtaining patent in India.
How much does it cost to get patent in India? There is no precise and accurate answer to this question as cost for Patent registration is dependent on multiple factors. There are two elements for cost of getting patent in India. First is the government fees for forms requests and renewals, second is professional charges for patent agent or patent attorney. Its always advisable to take professional service from a Patent Attroney who is a Patent agent since knowledge of Law is the game changing part of filing a patent. Most of patents in China and US are filed by Patent Attorney who have Patent agent license and not just a patent agent. This gives these patents edge over other filed in various geographies, because of proper legal knowledge. Government fees are different for individual inventors and companies and the cost of patent application also differs on number of claims and pages in the complete specification. But good news is, thanks to Modi government, all the patent fees are now 80% cheaper which saves lot of money of inventor to spend it at right place by hiring proper patent attorney and their patents are rightly secured. This is a very smart move of the Government.
Once invention disclosure is complete, you can opt for provisional patent application. Provisional patent application is a good choice in case you are at very early stage in the research and development of your invention. It gives following benefits- secures filing date that is priority date which is crucially important in world of patents it gives 12 months of time to file complete specification and it has low initial cost. It takes about seven days for bit in professional to work on provisional patent application and then it is filed in the relevant Patent Office. Besides this you can go for filing complete patent application directly if you are ready with most of the things of your invention the complete patent application includes entire description of the invention diagrams embodiments and claims it takes about 15 days for application. After reviewing the patent with the inventor a patent agent or patent attorney can file the application in the relevant Patent Office within 15 days. Upon filing the complete application for patent the application is published after 18 months from the date of filing.
Besides leaps and bound in improving patent process Modi government recently also conducted long pending Patent Agent exam. India now has fresh patent agents and patent attorneys to serve inventors and help save our precious inventions.
