The Ministry of Commerce and Industry (MCI) on February 09, 2021 has issued the Draft Patents (Amendment) Rules, 2021 to further amend the Patents Rules, 2003. Please follow the article to know the critical amendments that have been made.

Once an innovation/invention is attained, there is always scope for improvements/modifications based on the industrial feedback or as a natural consequence of ingenuity to attain the technical edge, reduce time involved to obtain the end result thereby contributing to technological progress and resulting in improved monetizing and/or licensing prospects.

Accelerated examination refers to the provision to fast-track patent applications to obtain patents for their inventions in different patent jurisdictions. The procedure to get a patent is tedious involving a great deal of intellectual and budgetary endeavors. Most often, Applicants look forward to avenues that can reduce this time in order to enjoy their IP rights. Accelerated examination in different geographical jurisdictions have different criteria and administrative requirements that need to be satisfied for a successful outcome.

Patent Cooperation treaty or PCT is an international agreement that simplifies the process of filing patent applications in different countries. Administered by the WIPO, PCT is a seamless route to file an International application, provide an international filing date for a patent application and to facilitate the Applicant to formulate a suitable IP strategy before embarking into different jurisdictions.

Patent Prosecution refers to those actions that occur between filing of a patent application and its final outcome i.e., patent grant, abandonment etc. To begin with a patent practitioner should understand that an Examiner is not trained in patent drafting but is trained to examine and identify errors/faults in the claims. Further given the limited time accorded to every patent application the patent practitioner should accord due attention to the merits of the objections/rejections raised in the Office Action.

The first part of this series drew a parallel of patent prosecution in Software and Biotechnology domains with respect to US and Indian jurisdictions. Herein, we follow up the initial article with a detailed analysis on a sample software patent application that was granted in the US and Indian jurisdictions.

IPO vs USPTO PROSECUTIONS This article aims to demarcate the pertinent differences in the Indian and US Patent systems that have influenced as to how inventions can be patented in both these jurisdictions. Be it in any part of the world, these criteria must always be satisfied 1) The invention must be novel 2) The...