Tag Archives: small entity

Patents (2nd Amendment) Rules, 2020 – Indian patent office updates fee schedule

Author: invntreepatent
November 11, 2020     No comments
IPAB

The Indian Patent Office in its notification dated November 04, 2020 presented Patents (2nd Amendment Rules), 2020. The Amendments have come into force on November 04, 2020.

The amendments bring forth significant changes to the fee schedule. The amended rules quashes the earlier categorization of applicants, for the purposes of fees, into three categories, viz., natural person or startup, small entity and others. According to the new rules, the applicants are now categorized into two categories, viz., natural person or startup or small entity and others.

Since small entity is now included in the same category as natural person and startup, the patent office fee for small entity is reduced and shall be same as the fee for natural person or startup. You may access the new fee schedule here.

Further, sub rule (3) of rule 7 is substituted with the following:

“(3) In case an application processed by a natural person or startup or small entity is fully or partly transferred to a person other than a natural person, startup or small entity, the difference, if any, in the scale of fees between the fees charged from the natural person, startup or small entity and the fees chargeable from the person other than a natural person, startup or small entity in the same matter, shall be paid by the new applicant with the request for transfer.

Explanation— Where a startup or small entity, having filed an application for a patent, ceases to be a startup or small entity due to the lapse of the period during which it is recognized by the competent authority, or its turnover subsequently crosses the financial threshold limit as notified by the competent authority, no such difference in the scale of fees shall be payable.”

The sub rule (3) of rule 7 is amended to include small entity into the same category as natural person and startup. The new rules set forth the following:

  1. In a scenario where an application is filed by a natural person, a startup or a small entity and is later transferred to a person other than a natural person, a startup or a small entity, the difference in fees due to the change in applicant status shall be paid by the new applicant with the request for transfer.
  2. In a scenario where an application is filed by a startup or small entity, and during the prosecution of the application, the applicant changes to others, either due to lapse of period which it is recognized by the competent authority, or its turnover subsequently crosses the financial threshold limit as notified by the competent authority, no difference in fee is payable.

Further, the proviso to sub rule (5) of rule 24C is substituted with the following:

“Provided that a request for expedited examination under this rule filed by a startup or small entity shall not be questioned merely on the ground that the startup or small entity, having filed an application for a patent, ceases to be a startup or small entity due to the lapse of the period during which it is recognised by the competent authority, or its turnover subsequently crosses the financial threshold limit as notified by the competent authority.”

According to the above presented proviso, in a scenario where the applicant is a startup or small entity and a request for expedited examination was filed by the applicant and the applicant status changes to others, either due to lapse of period which it is recognized by the competent authority, or its turnover subsequently crosses the financial threshold limit as notified by the competent authority, the request made for the expedited examination is not questionable.

In conclusion, The Patents (2nd Amendment) Rules, primarily tries to reduce the burden of fees incurred by small entity. This move coupled with the expedited examination will encourage small entities to file patent applications for their inventions.

Useful links:

Qualifying as a start-up as per the Indian Patent Rules

How to claim small entity status while filing for patents in Indian Patent Office

We hope this article was a useful read. 

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

Best regards – Team InvnTree   

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 3.0 Unported License

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How much does it cost to get a patent in India?

Author: invntreepatent
January 19, 2011     10 Comments

How much does it cost to get a patent in India?

Understanding the cost structure corresponding to applying for a patent can help in making some important decisions. Hence, instead of having a generic idea about the overall cost, it helps if you are aware of the breakdown of the cost structure and the time of incurring such expenses.

The overall cost of obtaining a patent includes the fee that has to be paid to the patent office (statutory fee) and the fee paid to the patent service provider (professional fee). The professional fee varies based on the service provider you may select. Hence, in this article I will deal only with the statutory fee.
 
Please note that, the most important factor in filing a patent application is preparing a patent specification. Drafting a patent specification is a highly skilled job, which can be only performed by persons who have both technical as well as patent law expertise. If a person or company is serious about protecting their intellectual property, it is highly recommeded to use the services of professional patent practitioners. To know more about this, you can read our articles on this.
The statutory fee depends on who the applicant of the patent is. The Indian Patent Office (IPO) has categorized the applicants into 4 categories:
  1. Natural person
  2. Startup(s)
  3. Other than natural person – Small Entity
  4. Other than natural person – Others except small Entity

Any individual(s) applying for a patent is considered as a natural person. On the other hand, all other entities that do not fall under the first category, fall under the remaining three categories of :

  1. Other than natural person – Startup
  2. Other than natural person – Small Entity
  3. Other than natural person – Others except small Entity
For example, legal entities, such as, companies would fall under these categories. It shall be noted that, a patent application can have more than one applicant, and even if one of the applicants do not fall under the first category, then the patent application is considered to be filed by applicants of the remaining two categories.
Applicants who are other than natural person are categorized into the below three categories.
  1. Other than natural person – Startup
  2. Other than natural person – Small Entity
  3. Other than natural person – Others except small Entity
The patent office charges the least fee for applicants who are natural persons and Startups.
The patent office also charges the least fee for entities who are startups. Certain conditions have to be met to qualify as startups. You can read more about this in our article. 
The patent office charges other than natural person applicants who are a small entity, a fee, which is between a natural person/startup and others except small Entity.The patent office charges a maximum fee for other than natural person applicants who are Others except small Entity/startup.The patent office collects 2 times the fee from the applicants who are "Other than natural person – Others except small Entity"  as compared to applicants who are "Other than natural person – Small Entity". Certain conditions have to be met by other than natural person applicants, who wish to claim "Small Entity" status. You can read more about this in our article. 
In this article, we will list down the fee applicable to all the categories of applicants. Please note that, the fee mentioned below is for E-filing of applications only. The patent office charges an additonal fee of 10% of the total fee, if filing is done through hardcopies. If the application is not filed online, and is done through hardcopies, you need to calculate the fee, at additional fee of 10% of the total fee.
 
No Description Patent office Fee (INR) 1$ = ~ 60 INR(E-Filing only) Comments
Other than Natural person Natural Person/Startup
Small Entity Other than small entity
1 Application for grant of patent 4000 8000 1600 Mandatory
2 Early publication fee 6250 12500 2500 Optional
3 Request for examination of patent application 10000 20000 4000 Mandatory
4 For every Extra sheet over 30 sheets 400/sheet 800/sheet 160/sheet Mandatory
5 For every Extra claim over 10 claims 800/claim 1600/claim 320/claim Mandatory

Sl. No. 1

 

A fee of INR 1600/4000/8000 has to be paid while submitting the patent application in the IPO, based on the type of applicant.
 
Sl. No. 2
A fee of INR 2500/6250/12500 has to be paid, based on the type of applicant, if you wish to have your patent application published by the IPO early. If this request is not made, then the IPO publishes your patent application after 18 months from priority date (date on which you first file a patent application for your invention). There are several advantages of having a patent application published early. Some of the advantages are: early publication can help in expediting the patent application examination process and the patent rights start from the date of publication.
 
Sl. No. 3
A fee of INR 4000/10000/20000 has to be paid, based on the type of applicant, requesting the IPO to examine your patent application. This request for examination can be filed and the fee paid within 48 months from the priority date. However, note that the patent office puts your application in queue for examination only after receiving this fee. Hence, if you want to expedite the patent process, it is advisable to file this request at the earliest. A startup can also request for expedited examination of their patent application. The fee for this is INR 8000. At present, the patent office has limited this request to about 1000 request in a year.
 
Sl. No. 4
The IPO accepts patent specification, which has up to 30 sheets without charging any extra fee. However, if the specification crosses 30 sheets, then a fee of INR 160/400/800/sheet for each extra sheet has to be paid to the IPO, based on the type of applicant.
 
Sl. No. 5
Further, the IPO accepts patent specification, which has up to 10 claims (no limitation on independent claims) without charging any extra fee. However, if the specification has more than 10 claims, then a fee of INR 320/800/1600/Claim for each extra claim has to be paid to the IPO, based on the type of applicant.
You may also calculate the patent office fee using our cost calculator below: All fee in USD.
 

Indian Patent Filing Cost Calculator
 
You may also read our below listed articles to gain more knowledge about the Indian Patenting system:

​I hope you found this article helpful. Please feel free to contact us to know more about how our patent services can help you in your business. 

Thank you,
Team InvnTree
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