How to file National Phase PCT Patent Application in India? – Let us first understand what is PCT. Patent Cooperation Treaty allows patent applicants to seek patent protection internationally. By this it means that, an applicant can have protection in a number of countries through applying for their application in accordance with the PCT procedure. These applications can be filed directly through WIPO, or from any regional office from its member countries. India being a member of the PCT, allows its citizens to seek patent protection internationally through one application by entering into the national phase PCT application India after filing their PCT Application at WIPO.
The patent application has to be filed in the countries which are the member of Paris convention within a time period of a year after the date of filing the priority application. It has a very basic advantage that filing in PCT member countries can be extended to 30 months or 31 months, that may vary according to country specific laws.
Starting from the very basic of the PCT application, it has two phases, namely International and National phase. The National Phase comes after the International Phase. The national phase includes the processing of patent application of specific countries by using the same procedure as used in the processing of a national application entry in India.
National Phase PCT Patent Application in India
Within 31 months from the priority date, the application enters the National Phase PCT application. The National Phase of a PCT application resembles a national filing in a respective country. However, the filing of PCT application is much simpler than the filing of normal national application since most of the formal requirements are resolved in the international phase itself. Also, the national examiners most often follow the Search Report conducted in the International Phase.
The application was filed at any of the four Patent Offices located at Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai or Mumbai, on the basis of domicile, business or place of the Applicant, before the year 2016. As per the Patent Rules 2016, there is no provision to file patent application in any of the four Indian Offices manually. This law became effective from 16th May, 2016, after which the Offices are no longer accepting the offline application filing.
Here are some of the important details regarding the PCT patent application in India.
- Documents: Here’s a list of documents that are required overall during the complete process of PCT patent application filing:
- Name, address, and inventor’s nationality
- Instrument of assignment or any transfer (if any)
- Evidence documents (in case of any sort of changes done by the applicant)
- Description, claims, any text matter of drawings, and abstract.
- Inventorship declaration, address of service in India, and power of attorney (in case if any agent is appointed)
- A copy of international application (if application has not received Form PCT/IB/308 and the Patent Office have not received a copy of the international application from the International Bureau under PCT Article 20)
- Certified translation copy (in case the language is not English)
- Furnishing (in case of nucleotide and/or amino acid sequence listing in electronic form)
- Statement concerning any corresponding applications filed in other countries on form 3 (in case if the concerned applications are already filed in other countries).
- Procedure: The procedure involves three basic phases, namely publication, request for examination, and the grant of patent.
- Publication: It takes 18 months after the filing date to public any patent application. After getting published, the application is open for public domain.
- Request for Examination: It is a compulsion that the Request For Examination (RFE) must be filed within 48 months of the filing date. Every application takes 3 months to get processed, after which the report has to be submitted by the Examiner. The task of choosing the application for examination is done in chronological order of RFE filing. Once the report for the examination is prepared, then the Controller sends back the report to the applicant, so that he/she could made modifications within a time period of 6 months (after the first examination report is submitted) as required by the examiner. In case, the applicant fails to make the modifications and fails to submit the required application within 6 months, then the application is simply abandoned.
- Grant of Patent: Once the examiner is satisfied by the applicant corrections and the controller is satisfied by the applicant’s application, then the patent is successfully granted according to the laws of the country.
Fees: The fee depends upon the type of invention and the number of pages on which the claims are made. It is US$94 for small entity and US$470 for large entity.
Also Read:
Patent Application Types (India)
Bursting Myths about Indian Patent System
Nitty Gritty of Expedited Patent Grant in India
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Your Patent Team is an exclusive team of more than 125 members, which are either technical subject experts, patent attorneys, or IP experts, that looks into a number of domains, such as Pharmaceutical, Chemical, Mechanical, Electrical, Biotechnology, Electronics, Telecommunication, Software, Information Technology and many more. We have experience of filing PCT application in India and serving clients from more than 45 countries.
We provide our services in India, such as we help our Indian clients in filing PCT application in India or in WIPO within 12 months from the priority date of Indian patent application, in filing national phase PCT applications in the PCT member countries, and in filing national phase PCT application in India within 31 months from the priority date of application for International clients. We not just ensure about the strongest and broadest protection, but makes sure that you get at the optimum costs.
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