Draft Patents (Amendment) Rules, 2015

The Ministry of Commerce and Industry has published Draft Patents (Amendment) Rules, 2015. Some of the salient features of the Draft amendments Rules are The timeline in relation to placing the application in order for grant, which is currently 12-months, has been reduced to 4-months. While the period is extendible by a maximum of 2-months upon payment of extension fee. For the first time, the rules provide for expediting examination of applications. This amendment is in line with the Government's undertaking as part of the newly-implemented "Made in India" campaign. An Applicant wishing to expedite issuance of a First Examination Report on his application can now file a request with an enhanced fee (Rs. 2,50,000). In addition to paying the enhanced fee, the Applicant has to provide some undertaking in relation to manufacturing of products covered by the Patent in India. As an attempt to reduce the applications pending for examination a provision to withdraw an already filed "request for examination" has been provided. In case an application is still pending for examination and an applicant has lost interest in prosecuting the same, he can now file a request for withdrawal and receive a fee refund.