What Is Patent Registration?
To get a patent registration is to legally label something as one’s own innovation or property. An individual or a firm can get an Intellectual Property Right (IPR) for their unique idea, invention, or product. The government grants a statutory right to the patentee in exchange for a full disclosure of their invention. The term of every patent is 20 years from the date of filing of application.
The patent system in India is governed by the Patents Act, 1970 and the Patents Rules, 2003. Under this law, the patent owner has an exclusive right to prevent others from commercially utilising his/her patented invention.
No one apart from the patentee can make, use, distribute, import, or sell the invention or product without the patent owner’s approval.
What can you get patented?
A patent can be for various things, be it a manufacturing method, art (not a painting), a process, a product, a particular apparatus, a machine, a software, an application, or chemicals, pharma, etc.
What are the limitations?
Globally, patents are a territorial right. The applicant has to file his patent application in respective countries separately to obtain protection on his invention.
How to get an ‘International’ Patent?
The PCT is an international treaty with more than 150 Contracting States. The PCT makes it possible to seek patent protection for an invention simultaneously in a large number of countries by filing a single “international” patent application instead of filing several separate national or regional patent applications.
This can be done within or before the expiry of 12 months from the filing date in India by either of the following routes:
(a) Direct or Paris Convention route: you can directly file separate patent applications at the same time in all of the countries in which you would like to protect your invention
(b) PCT route –(Patent Co-operation Treaty System): PCT is a system which allows an applicant to file in PCT contracting states within 30/31 months from priority date instead of 12 months., which has legal effect in all Contracting States of the PCT.
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Suggested topics:
Documents required for a patent registration
Types of patent applications in India
Rules for filing a patent
