Patents
Perspectives on patents across India and the subcontinent.
12 May 2020
COVID-19 and IP Deadlines: How the Courts Extended Limitation
When the pandemic hit, the Supreme Court froze limitation across all proceedings and the IP offices extended deadlines. A record of those measures — and a note that the extensions have since concluded.
23 March 2020
Indian IP Office Deadline Extensions During COVID-19: A Record
A chronology of the CGPDTM, Patent Office, Trade Marks Registry and Copyright Office notifications that extended IP deadlines during the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown — plus the Supreme Court's suo-motu limitation extension.
18 February 2020
Pre-Grant Patent Opposition in India: Grounds and Procedure
Anyone can challenge a patent application before it's granted. A guide to pre-grant opposition under Section 25(1) — who can file, the eleven statutory grounds, and the step-by-step procedure before the Controller.
4 December 2019
The India–Japan PPH Guidelines: How the Scheme Actually Works
The IPO published its PPH procedure guidelines days before requests opened — five chapters covering eligibility, documents and deadlines, with a cap of 100 cases a year and ten per applicant. Of the first hundred requests, forty-four were rejected as ineligible.
Adyasree Prakriti · 27 November 2019
The India–Japan Patent Prosecution Highway
India's first PPH arrangement lets an applicant whose claims were found patentable in Japan obtain accelerated examination in India, and vice versa. For a jurisdiction where examination delay is the perennial complaint, that is the substantive benefit.
11 October 2019
No Patent, No Infringement: Novartis v. Natco on Ceritinib
Natco launched its product while a post-grant opposition was pending, then the Opposition Board reversed itself and the patent was revoked. The Delhi High Court held that an injunction cannot survive the patent — rights in a patent subsist only during its lifetime.
17 September 2019
Model IPR Guidelines for Academic Institutions: Who Owns Campus Innovation?
CIPAM's draft model guidelines give academic institutions a framework for IP created on campus — default institutional ownership of resource-backed inventions (with author-owned scholarly copyright), revenue-sharing with researchers, startup-friendly reassignment, and open-source encouragement.
9 September 2019
An Overview of Standard Essential Patents (SEPs) and FRAND
The QWERTY keyboard, cellular connectivity — some patents are unavoidable if you want to make standard-compliant products. What Standard Essential Patents are, how SSOs and FRAND licensing work, the challenges (royalty base, no guidelines), and the key Indian and US cases.
17 December 2018
The Patent Amendment Rules That Widened Expedited Examination
Expedited examination had been limited to startups and applicants choosing India as ISA. The amendments extended it to small entities, female applicants, government undertakings and applicants under international arrangements — and removed several fees entirely.
Divya Shanmugathas · 19 August 2016
Software and Indian Patent Law: A Good Combination?
Software is protected by copyright, but 'computer programme per se' isn't patentable under Section 3(k). How the 'per se' wording opens the door to 'computer-related inventions', the back-and-forth over the CRI guidelines, and the debate on whether software should be patentable at all.
1 June 2016
The Patents (Amendment) Rules, 2016: What Changed
The 2016 Rules recognised startups as a fee category, capped sequence listing fees, halved the time to reply to a First Examination Report, introduced expedited examination and video-conference hearings, and made electronic filing the norm.
Harleen · 10 March 2016
Taxes and IP: Are Royalty Payments Revenue or Capital?
When a company licenses IP it doesn't own and pays royalties, is that a revenue expense or partly capital? The Sicpa India ruling clarifies: if the know-how stays the licensor's, the royalty is revenue expenditure — fully deductible.