Patents (Amendment) Rules, 2024: Changes
The Ministry of Commerce and Industry has notified the Patents Amendment Rules, 2024 making significant changes to Indian patent practice and procedure.
Changes Introduced Under Patents (Amendment) Rules, 2024:
- The timeline for filing the RFE is now reduced from 48 months to 31 months from the priority date.
- The reduced timeline for filing a Request for Examination (RFE) will accelerate the patent examination process.
- Applicants can simply file a single updated Form 3 after receiving the First Examination Report (FER).
- The Patent office issues an examination report to the applicant which is generally known as FER.
- Introduction of ‘Certificate of Inventorship’: To recognise inventors’ contributions to patented inventions.
- As the Indian patent certificate does not identify the inventors, this provision will allow inventors to be identified for their inventions.
- The frequency of filing working patents was reduced from once in a financial year to once in every three financial years.
- The time frame for submission of recommendations by an Opposition Board and the response time for applicants have been adjusted.
- A divisional application can be filed in respect of an invention disclosed in the provisional or complete application or a further divisional application.
- This amendment is in alignment with the recent decision of the Delhi High Court in Syngenta Limited v. Controller of Patents and Designs Case, 2023.
- The court clarified that divisional applications may be filed in respect of parent applications where the complete or provisional specification (and not necessarily the claims) of the parent application disclose a plurality of inventions.
