16. How much time required for grant of patent and expedited route

Time required to File patent application (patent pending)

“The time required for drafting and filing a Patent application in India is about 15 days, then you receive a “patent pending” status. The time required for getting a patent grant in India is 2-3 years by the normal route, and about 1 year by the expedited route.“

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Now, we assume that the details about your invention are ready with your and you prepared a comprehensive invention disclosure to discuss with patent agent or attorney.

from the day you start the project for patent drafting (writing) it takes about 10 to 15 days for patent agent / attorney to work on your invention and create final version of patent draft, which would be sent to you for approval and suggesting improvements if any. (time taken by you to review and respond to final version of draft adds to the total time required)

generally the patent application is filed in government patent office within 2 weeks from the start of project and a receipt is generated from patent office about confirmation of filing of patent application for your invention.

Patent Pending or Patent filed status and its advantages

Patent Pending or Patent filed status :

You can write “patent pending”  or “patent applied” and mention the patent application number in front of your technology as soon as you file the patent application in patent office. generally the time required for preparing and filing patent application is 10 to 15 days… hence you can get patent pending status for your invention within 15 days which has many benefits.

You can use patent-pending or patent applied status for both provisional or complete patent application.

There are some subtle advantages of writing “patent pending” next to name of your product of service or may be sometimes in your resume and achievements:

  • This gives an immediate impression of superior product or technology in minds of reader
  • Seeing the patent pending or patent applied status, many of the competitors would be discouraged anticipating they would not be able to compete in same domain if you got granted patent
  • This sends a message to public that the patent has been applied for this innovative technology
  • You investors take you more seriously if you have patent pending for your invention

Having said this, there is no legal significance of these words. The infringement suit can be initiated only after the patent is granted.

The grant of patent takes more than 2 or 3 Years by normal route and within 1 or 1.5 year by expedited route . but you don’t need to wait for grant of patent to do almost 95% of things you wanted to do with your invention:

After filing of patent application, that is receiving patent pending or patent applied status and patent application number ; you can do most of the things like:

  • disclosing patented invention without fear of losing its confidentiality (since patent is already filed and we secured the priority date already)
  • testing commercial worth of invention
  • demonstrating invention to other businesses or parties
  • selling invention in market
  • presenting information in seminar or conferences
  • talking to investors or bankers for funding etc…

However, although patent pending or patent filed status has all these benefits,  you can not stop others until you have granted patent in India (or the respective country of your interest).

Time required for grant of patent in India

in this section we will see the second part of question: ” How much time required for grant of patent”

Although there are many advantages of patent filed or patent pending states , you sometimes need to wait for grant of patent for doing some specific activity like stopping others from using your invention or to file a law suit for infringement or file a case against infringing party.

in general there are 2 timelines to consider for grant of patent. 

  • time for grant of patent by Normal route
  • time for grant of patent by Expedited (Faster ) route 

Short Answer : 

  • time required for getting granted patent by normal route is more than 2 to 3 years and
  • time required for getting granted patent by Expedited (Faster ) route is within 1 to 1.5 years 

Detailed answer:

We need to refer few sections to get complete understanding of time required considering stages involved, refer sections below:

Time required for grant of patent by Normal route

Note : these are approximate time lines and may change from case to case basis. 

  • Novelty search : it is an optional step and time required for completing this search report is 8 to 10 days.
  • Patent drafting (writing) : time required to draft patent application is about 2 weeks that is 12 to 15 days.
  • Filing patent application : time required to file patent application upon review and approval from you (applicant) is about 1 day.
  • Publication of application : patent application is published after expiry of 18 months from the date of filing. However you can do early publication request and it would be published within 1 month.
  • Request for Examination: we need to file request for examination RFE within 48 months from filing of patent application. sooner we file RFE the better as our application would be up in the queue of applications to be examined.
  • Examination of Application and First examination report FER : it may require more than 1 year for your application to get examined and generate the First examination report which has objections
  • Response to FER or Objection: You need to reply within 6 months to FER but sooner you respond with reply the better as it shortens the time required for grant. in some cases there may be need of more than one communication with the government patent office as a response to objections and sometimes even hearing is required. this further adds up the time required for grant of patent.
  • Grant of patent : it takes more than 2 to 3 years time for a grant of patent via the Normal route and this time significantly varies from case to case, number of objections received and the proactiveness of applicant (you) in taking necessary steps as soon as possible 

Time required for grant of a patent by Expedited (Faster) route

Note : these are approximate timelines and may change from case to case basis. 

  • Novelty search : it is an optional step and time required for completing this search report is 8 to 10 days.
  • Patent drafting (writing) : time required to draft patent application is about 2 weeks that is 12 to 15 days.
  • Filing patent application : time required to file patent application upon review and approval from you (applicant) is about 1 day.
  • Publication of application : patent application is published after expiry of 18 months from the date of filing. However you can do early publication request and it would be published within 1 month.
  • Request for expedited Examination: we may choose to file request for expedited examination for  patent application. refer section on Cost of filing patent in India by Expedited route for details
  • Examination of Application and First examination report FER : since expedited examination has shorter time lines for all steps in between we can expect the First examination report within 6 months
  • Response to FER or Objection : You may choose to respond to FER as soon as possible as it shortens the time required for grant. in some cases there may be need of more than one communication with government patent office as response to objections and sometimes even hearing is required. this further adds up the time required for grant of patent.
  • Grant of patent : we can expect patent to be granted within 1 to 1.5 years via expedited route and this time significantly varies from case to case, number of objections received and proactiveness of applicant (you) in taking necessary steps as soon as possible

How to speed up patent filing process in India and get patent granted as soon as possible

There are different strategies to speed up the process from idea to granted patent. 

  • being ready with appropriate information about the invention really reduces time from the ideation stage of the invention to a patent filed stage of invention, Idea incubation phase and preliminary search help in great deal to speed things up and shorten the time and frequency of communication with patent professional
  • another strategy would drafting first claim in the meeting with patent agent or attorney which helps in creating rest of the patent application in quicker time. Saving a lot of emails and meetings for the same outcome.
  • Directly filing a complete patent application, without spending time in patentability search or provisional patent application
  • After filing the patent application, you can file early publication request in patent office using form 9 and paying prescribed fees (which is Rs. 2500 for individual inventor). By doing this you need not wait for the expiry of 18 months from the filing date of the patent application and controller publishes your application as soon as possible.
  • Immediately after the application is published filing request for examination (RFE) in form 18 and with fees 4000 for individual inventor.
  • Expedited examination of applications can be made as per rule 24 C with form 18 A provided (a) that India has been indicated as the competent International Searching Authority or elected as an International Preliminary Examining Authority in the corresponding international application; or (b) that the applicant is a startup.
  • And responding to objections raised by controller in least possible time 

These are some of the strategies to speed up the process of getting patent granted in India. The main theme remains being prepared with information and taking proactive steps to minimize the delay at all intermediate steps.

Prasad Karhad
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