Patent Glossary — Key Terms Explained

A

Abandonment: An application is treated as withdrawn or abandoned where the applicant misses a statutory step — most commonly failing to request examination within thirty-one months, or failing to place the application in order for grant within the prescribed period. Indian courts have restored applications where the failure was the agent's rather than the applicant's, and no conscious intention to abandon existed.
Abstract: An abstract is a short summary of the invention published with the application. It is for information only — it plays no part in defining the scope of protection, which is set by the claims.
Amendment: An amendment is a change made to an application or granted patent to correct, clarify or narrow it. In India amendments must not extend the scope of the claims beyond what was originally disclosed.
Anticipation: An invention is anticipated when a single piece of prior art already discloses everything the claim requires. Anticipation destroys novelty, unlike inventive step, which weighs several disclosures together.
Applicant: The applicant is the person, company or other entity that files the application and will own any patent granted. The applicant need not be the inventor, but must be able to show how the right to apply was acquired.
Assignment: An assignment is the transfer of ownership of a patent or application from one party to another. In India it must be in writing and should be recorded with the Patent Office to be effective against third parties.
Assignment Deed: The written instrument transferring a patent or application. It must be recorded with the Patent Office on the prescribed form; until it is, the transferee may lack standing to sue.

B

Best Mode: Best mode is the preferred way of performing the invention known to the applicant at the time of filing. Indian law requires it to be disclosed in the complete specification.
Biological Material: Biological material is material carrying genetic information that can reproduce or be reproduced. Where an invention uses material that cannot be described adequately in words, it must be deposited with a recognised depositary institution.
Bolar Exemption: Section 107A permits making, using or selling a patented invention solely for uses reasonably related to obtaining regulatory approval. It lets generic manufacturers prepare for launch before the patent expires, so approval is not delayed by the monopoly.

C

Claim Chart: A claim chart is a table setting each element of a claim against a product, process or prior art reference. It is the standard working tool in infringement and invalidity analysis.
Claim Construction: Claim construction is the exercise of interpreting what the words of a claim mean and how far they reach. It usually decides both infringement and validity, and is undertaken by the court rather than the parties.
Claims: Claims are the numbered statements at the end of the specification that define the legal monopoly. Everything else in the document explains; only the claims confer rights. Infringement and validity are both decided on their wording.
Complete Specification: A complete specification is the full disclosure of the invention, ending in the claims. Where a provisional specification was filed first, the complete specification must follow within twelve months.
Compulsory Licence: A compulsory licence permits a third party to work a patented invention without the owner's consent. In India it may be sought three years after grant on the Section 84 grounds — unmet public demand, unaffordable pricing, or failure to work the patent in India.
Computer Related Invention (CRI): Software-implemented inventions. Section 3(k) excludes computer programmes 'per se', and the CGPDTM's Guidelines for Examination of Computer Related Inventions govern practice — the 2017 revision removed the novel-hardware requirement introduced in 2016.
Controller of Patents: The Controller is the officer of the Patent Office who examines applications and decides on grant, opposition, revocation for non-working and related matters. Decisions of the Controller are appealable to the High Court.
Controller's Decision: The Controller's written order on grant, refusal, opposition or amendment. It must be a speaking order giving reasons; Indian High Courts have repeatedly set aside refusals that were non-speaking or that relied on grounds no party raised.
Convention Application: A convention application claims priority from an earlier application filed in a Paris Convention country. It must be filed within twelve months of that earlier filing date.

D

Dependent Claim: A dependent claim refers back to another claim and adds a further limitation. It is narrower than the claim it depends on, and survives if the broader claim falls.
Divisional Application: A divisional application carves a further invention out of a parent application that disclosed more than one. It keeps the parent's filing date and must be filed before the parent is granted.

E

Embodiment: An embodiment is a specific worked example of the invention given in the specification. Including several embodiments helps show the invention's breadth and supports wider claims.
Enablement: Enablement is the requirement that the specification teach a person skilled in the art how to make and use the invention without undue experimentation. A claim broader than what the description enables is vulnerable.
Examination: Examination is the Patent Office's substantive review of whether an application meets the requirements for grant. In India examination begins only after a request for examination is filed — it is not automatic.
Examination Report: The First Examination Report (FER) sets out the objections the applicant must overcome. In India the response is due within six months of its issue, extendable by three months on request.
Exclusive Licence: An exclusive licence gives one licensee the sole right to work the invention, to the exclusion of everyone else and, on its terms, the patent owner too.
Expedited Examination: A faster track under Rule 24C, available to startups, small entities, female applicants, government undertakings, applicants electing India as ISA or IPEA under the PCT, and those from countries with a bilateral arrangement.

F

Foreign Filing Licence: A foreign filing licence is written permission for a resident of India to file a patent application abroad without first filing in India. Section 39 requires it where no Indian application has been on file for at least six weeks, and breach can invalidate the Indian patent.
Form 1: The application for grant of a patent — the primary form identifying the applicant, inventor and the basis of the right to apply.
Form 27: Form 27 is the statement of working filed with the Indian Patent Office. Since the 2020 amendment it is filed once every three financial years, and it records whether and to what extent the patent has been worked in India.
Form 3: The statement and undertaking under Section 8, disclosing corresponding applications filed outside India. Under the 2024 Rules it is filed at the outset and updated once, within three months of the first examination report.
Form 5: The declaration as to inventorship, filed with a complete specification.
Freedom to Operate (FTO): Freedom to operate is the assessment of whether a product or process can be commercialised without infringing patents held by others. It asks a different question from patentability — it looks at other people's rights, not your own.

G

Grant: Grant is the point at which the patent comes into force and becomes enforceable. In India the grant is published in the Official Journal, and post-grant opposition may be filed within twelve months of that publication.

I

Independent Claim: An independent claim stands alone and defines the invention without reference to any other claim. It is the broadest statement of what the patent protects.
Industrial Applicability: Industrial applicability is the requirement that the invention be capable of being made or used in some kind of industry. It is one of the three statutory conditions for patentability in India, alongside novelty and inventive step.
Infringement: Making, using, offering for sale, selling or importing a patented product or process without the patentee's authority. Indian law provides no statutory definition — the scope is set by the claims, read purposively, and the usual defences are invalidity, Bolar use, and prior use.
International Search Report (ISR): The ISR is issued during the international phase of a PCT application and lists the prior art the searching authority considers relevant. It is an early, non-binding indication of how the claims may fare.
Invention: An invention is a new product or process involving an inventive step and capable of industrial application. Not everything inventive is patentable — Section 3 of the Patents Act excludes several categories outright.
Inventive Step: A feature involving technical advance or economic significance, or both, that makes the invention non-obvious to a person skilled in the art. Section 2(1)(ja) of the Indian Act requires the advance to be technical — not merely a difference from the prior art.
Inventor: The person who devised the invention. Inventorship is a question of fact about who contributed to the conception, and it is distinct from ownership — an employer may own what an employee invents.

L

Licensing: Licensing is the grant of permission to work a patented invention on agreed terms, usually in exchange for royalties. Unlike an assignment, ownership stays with the patent holder.

M

Markush Claim: A claim covering a family of chemical compounds by reciting a general structure with lists of alternatives at defined positions. Common in pharmaceutical patents, and often central to disputes about whether a later specific compound was already covered.

N

National Phase: The national phase is the stage at which a PCT application enters individual countries and is examined under local law. India's deadline for entering the national phase is thirty-one months from the priority date.
Non-Exclusive Licence: A non-exclusive licence permits the licensee to work the invention while leaving the owner free to license the same rights to others.
Non-Patentable Inventions: Section 3 lists what cannot be patented in India, whatever its merits — frivolous inventions, mere discoveries, new forms of known substances without enhanced efficacy, mere admixtures, mere arrangements, agricultural methods, methods of treatment, plants and animals, mathematical or business methods, computer programmes per se, literary and artistic works, presentations of information, integrated circuit topographies and traditional knowledge. Section 4 excludes inventions relating to atomic energy.
Novelty: An invention is novel if it has not been disclosed anywhere in the world, in any form, before the priority date. India applies absolute novelty — a public demonstration, a paper or an offer for sale by the inventor destroys it just as surely as a competitor's patent.

O

Opposition (Post-Grant): A post-grant opposition may be filed by a person interested within twelve months of the grant being published. It is heard by an Opposition Board, which reports to the Controller.
Opposition (Pre-Grant): A pre-grant opposition may be filed by any person after publication and before grant, on the grounds listed in Section 25(1). It is a low-cost way to challenge an application before the patent ever comes into force.
Opposition Board: The panel of examiners that considers a post-grant opposition and submits a reasoned recommendation to the Controller, who then decides after hearing the parties.
Ordinary Application: An application filed at the Indian Patent Office without claiming priority from any earlier application, whether accompanied by a provisional or a complete specification.

P

Paris Convention: The Paris Convention is the treaty that lets an applicant use the filing date of a first application in one member country when filing in others within twelve months.
Patent: A patent is an exclusive right granted for an invention — a product or process that is new, involves an inventive step and is capable of industrial application — allowing the owner to prevent others from making, using, selling or importing it for twenty years, in exchange for full public disclosure.
Patent Agent: A patent agent is a person registered with the Indian Patent Office and entitled to draft, file and prosecute applications on an applicant's behalf. Registration requires a science or engineering degree and passing the agent examination.
Patent Application: A patent application is the formal request for protection, comprising the specification, claims, drawings and prescribed forms. Filing it secures a date from which novelty is judged.
Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT): The Patent Cooperation Treaty is an international system that lets an applicant seek patent protection in many countries through a single international application, deferring the cost of separate national filings.
Patent Family: A patent family is the set of applications and patents covering the same invention across different countries, all tracing back to a common priority filing.
Patent of Addition: A patent of addition protects an improvement to an invention already patented by the same applicant. It runs only for the remaining term of the main patent and attracts no separate renewal fees.
Patent Office: The Indian Patent Office, part of the CGPDTM, with branches at Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata. The appropriate office is determined by the applicant's place of residence, business or the origin of the invention.
Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH): An arrangement letting an application found allowable by one office be examined faster in another. India runs a bilateral PPH pilot with the Japan Patent Office, subject to an annual cap on requests.
Patent Search: A patent search reviews published patents and technical literature to find prior art relevant to an invention. Done before filing, it tests whether the invention is worth pursuing; done before launch, it informs freedom to operate.
Patent Term: Twenty years from the date of filing, for every field of technology, subject to payment of renewal fees from the third year. India grants no patent term extension, including for pharmaceuticals.
Patentability: Whether an invention qualifies for a patent: it must be novel, inventive and industrially applicable, and must not fall within the exclusions in Sections 3 and 4 of the Patents Act — which in India rule out business methods, computer programmes as such, mathematical methods, mere admixtures and new forms of known substances lacking enhanced efficacy.
PCT Application: A PCT application is a single international application that preserves the right to seek patents in over 150 countries. It does not itself grant a patent — protection comes only from the national phase in each country.
Person Interested: A person with a direct commercial stake in the patent — a competitor, a research body in the field. Standing to file a post-grant opposition or a revocation petition is limited to a person interested, unlike pre-grant opposition, which any person may file.
Person Skilled in the Art: The person skilled in the art is the hypothetical practitioner of ordinary competence in the relevant field, presumed to know the prior art. Inventive step is judged through their eyes.
Prior Art: Everything made available to the public anywhere in the world before the priority date — patents, publications, products, oral disclosures, prior public use. It is the yardstick for both novelty and inventive step.
Priority Date: The date fixing the point at which novelty and inventive step are assessed. It is the date of the first filing for that subject matter, whether an Indian provisional or a foreign application relied on under the Paris Convention.
Priority Document: A priority document is a certified copy of the earlier application on which priority is claimed. It must be filed with the Indian Patent Office to secure the earlier date.
Provisional Refusal: In the international context, the notification that an office will not grant protection on the terms sought unless objections are met within the prescribed period.
Provisional Specification: A provisional specification describes the invention at an early stage and secures a filing date before the work is complete. The complete specification must follow within twelve months or the application lapses.
Publication: Publication is the point at which the application becomes open to the public — in India, ordinarily eighteen months from the priority date, or earlier on request. Publication starts the window for pre-grant opposition.
Purposive Construction: The approach to reading claims by asking what the skilled reader would understand the patentee to have meant, rather than parsing the words literally or ignoring them. It underlies infringement analysis in India as in the UK.

R

Renewal Fee: Renewal fees keep a granted patent in force and fall due annually from the third year. A patent that lapses for non-payment may be restored on application within eighteen months.
Request for Examination: A request for examination asks the Patent Office to take up the application. In India it must be filed within thirty-one months of the priority date under the 2024 Rules — miss it and the application is treated as withdrawn.
Response to Examination Report: The response addresses each objection raised in the examination report, amending the claims or arguing against the objection. In India it must be filed within six months of the report, extendable by three.
Restoration: Restoration is the process of reviving a patent that has lapsed for non-payment of renewal fees. The application must be made within eighteen months of the lapse and must show the failure was unintentional.
Revocation: Revocation is the cancellation of a granted patent on the grounds set out in Section 64. It may be sought by petition to the High Court or as a counter-claim in an infringement suit — but not both at once.
Royalty: A royalty is the payment a licensee makes for the right to work a patented invention, usually calculated as a percentage of sales or a fixed sum per unit.

S

Section 3(d): Section 3(d) bars patents on new forms of known substances unless they show enhanced efficacy. It is India's principal statutory check on evergreening, and was upheld by the Supreme Court in the Novartis case.
Section 8: Section 8 requires an applicant to keep the Indian Patent Office informed about corresponding applications filed abroad, through Form 3. Failure to comply is a ground for revocation, though the courts treat it as discretionary rather than automatic.
Sequence Listing: The electronic listing of nucleotide or amino acid sequences required with biotech applications, filed in the prescribed format. Indian rules cap the fee payable on sequence listings.
Specification: The document describing the invention. A provisional specification secures a priority date while the work continues; the complete specification, due within twelve months, must fully and particularly describe the invention, disclose the best method known, and end with the claims.
State of the Art: The state of the art is the whole body of knowledge publicly available before the priority date, against which novelty and inventive step are measured.
Sufficiency of Disclosure: The requirement that the specification describe the invention fully enough for a skilled person to perform it. Insufficient disclosure is a ground of both pre-grant and post-grant opposition and of revocation under Section 64.

T

Term Extension: An extension of patent term to compensate for regulatory delay. Several jurisdictions provide it; India does not — the term is twenty years from filing without exception.
Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL): The Indian database of documented traditional knowledge, made available to foreign patent offices so that applications claiming known Ayurvedic, Unani and Siddha remedies can be refused for want of novelty.

U

Unity of Invention: Unity of invention is the requirement that a single application cover one invention or a group of inventions linked by a single inventive concept. Where it does not, the extra inventions must be pursued in divisional applications.
Utility: Utility is the requirement that an invention be useful in practice. Indian law expresses this as industrial applicability rather than the US concept of utility.

W

Working of a Patent: Working a patent means commercially manufacturing, using or otherwise exploiting the invention. Indian law expects patents to be worked in India, and failure to do so can support a compulsory licence.
Working Requirement: The expectation that a patent be commercially worked in India. It underpins both the Form 27 statement of working and the compulsory licensing grounds in Section 84.
Working Statement: The working statement is the declaration of whether a patent has been worked in India, filed on Form 27. Filing a false statement is an offence.
Written Opinion: The written opinion accompanies the international search report in the PCT process and gives a preliminary, non-binding view on novelty, inventive step and industrial applicability.