The Patent (Amendment) Rules, 2019 have now come into effect on 18th September, 2019. As proposed in the draft rules, the new rules entitle the following categories of patent applicants to seek expedited examination of their patent applications:
1. A small entity;
2. a natural person or in the case of joint applicants, all the applicants are natural persons, then the applicant or at least one of the applicants is a female;
3. a department of the Government;
4. an institution established by a Central, Provincial or State Act, which is owned or controlled by the Government;
5. a government company6as defined in clause (45) of section 2 of the companies Act, 2013 (18 of 2013); or
6. an institution wholly or substantially financed by the Government;
7. whose application pertains to a sector which is notified by the Central Government on the basis of a request from the head of a department of the Central Government;
8. whose application is eligible under an arrangement for processing a patent application pursuant to an agreement between Indian Patent office and a foreign Patent Office. (The patentability of patent applications filed under this clause will be in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Act.)
The above amendments have come into affect by amendment in Rule 24C. Expedited examination was earlier available for Applicants who had selected India as an International Searching Authority (ISA) or as an International Preliminary Examining Authority (IPEA) in the corresponding International application, or the Applicant is a start-up.
The other amendments that were implemented are:
– As per the latest amendment, Rule 6, Sub rule 1 is revised and now it states that ‘Originals are not required’ and all documents have to be filed electronically and only upon request the originals have to be submitted within 15 days.
– Rule 7 has been revised and it is mentioned that not only small entities but even start ups need to file Form-28 with every document for which a fee has been specified.
– Form 18 has been revised on the basis of above expansion of eligibility of expedited examination along with the documents required.
– There is no fee applicable now for transmittal of international application in case of ePCT filing and for preparation of certified copy of priority document and e-transmission through WIPO-DAS.
You can access the patent amendment rules 2019 from here. You may also interested to read the following
Draft Patent Amendment Rules 2019
Fast Track/Expedited Patent Examination in India
How to File a Patent in Indian Patent Office?