New guidelines for patent filing bring cheer to budding entrepreneurs

Indian Post Office at New Delhi has issued new guidelines for filing and processing of applications for patent, designs and trademarks, in order to encourage budding entrepreneurs and boost innovation.

A startup that wants to file a patent application for an invention will have to select a facilitator who would help in preparing the request and also assess the patentability of the invention, as per acts and rules, the Controller General Patents, Designs and Trade Marks said in a public notice. The notice states that all the fee relating to filing of the application and other statutory fees would have to be borne by the startup.

The facilitator will have to monitor and perform further steps of proceedings of startups patent application, prepare the reply to any query from the patent office. The office has also released a list of about 280 facilitators in such regard.

For budding entrepreneurs, the government will bear the entire cost of facilitation for the filing of patents, trademarks or designs. The move is aimed at promoting awareness and adoption of intellectual property rights by startups and facilitate them in protecting and commercializing those rights.