Expedited Patent Examination in India

Introduction

A request for examination must be filed for the patent application filed with the Indian patent office. Unless this request is filed, the IPO will not take up the application for examination.

Ordinarily, a request for examination of a patent application filed in India shall be made within 48 months from the date of the earliest priority application.

The request for examination can be filed by the applicant or by any interested third party. After filing the request for examination, the Indian patent office will take up the application for examination in due course in the order in which the requests were filed. If no such request for examination is filed within the prescribed time limit, the application shall be treated as abandoned by the applicant.

Normally, it may take the IPO up to 3 years to complete the examination of an application and issue an examination report.

The IPO has introduction the option to expedite examination of patent applications. A request for expedited examination is an application filed by an applicant requesting the Indian Patent Office to accelerate the examination of the patent application under rule 24C of the Patent Rules, 2003. The applications for expedited examination will be allotted to a queue, which is different from the ordinary examination queue, and will be allotted to an examiner for examination substantially sooner than the applications that have been queued for normal examination.

Requirements for expedited examination

• The applicant:
  • Has chosen India as an International Searching Authority (ISA) or as an International Preliminary Examining Authority (IPEA) in a corresponding PCT application.
  • Is a Start-up as defined in rule 2(fb) of the Patent Rules, 2003; or
  • Is a small entity as defined in rule 2(fa) of the Patent Rules, 2003; or
  • Is a female natural person; or
  • Is a government undertaking in accordance with section 2(1) (h) of the Patent Act, 1970 in case of an Indian applicant, or is a similar entity in case of a foreign applicant; or
  • Is eligible under an arrangement for processing an international application pursuant to an agreement between Indian patent office with another participating patent office.
• A request for expedited examination must be accompanied by a request for publication unless the application has already been published or the request for publication has already been filed.
• A request for expedited examination must be filed by Form 18A as specified in the second schedule of Patent Rules, 2003, along with the fee as mentioned in the first schedule.

Fees for expedited examination

The fees charged for expedited examination is more than the fees charged for ordinary examination. The fee structure for early publication, ordinary examination and expedited examination is provided below:

Request Type	Government Fees
	Natural Person / Start-Up / Small Entity	Others
Early Publication	INR 2,500 (USD 38)	INR 12,500 (USD 192)
Ordinary Examination	INR 4,000 (USD 62)	INR 20,000 (USD 308)
Expedited Examination	INR 8,000 (USD 123)	INR 60,000 (USD 923)

Converting ordinary examination request to expedited examination request

If an eligible Applicant has filed an ordinary request for examination and wishes to covert their request into an expedited examination request, by filing a Form 18A with the requisite fee as shown below:

Request Type	Government Fees
	Natural Person / Start-Up / Small Entity	Others
Converting to an expedited examination request	INR 4,000 (USD 62)	INR 40,000 (USD 615)

Conclusion:

The primary advantage of expedited examination is that, the applications for which expedited examination is requested will be allotted to a queue, which is different from the ordinary examination queue, and once the application queued for expedited examination is allotted to an examiner, the procedure to be followed is time bound, and the same is illustrated in the flow chart below.

Note that opportunity of hearing with the patent examiner is available, just like ordinary examination.

We hope this article helps patent applicants gain better understanding of the various initiatives of the Indian Patent office to expedite examination of patent applications and thereby benefit by availing them.

Please feel free check our patent services page to find out if we can cater to your patent requirements. You can also contact us to explore the option of working together. 

Best regards – Team InvnTree   

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