Patent Search & Registration Support

Patent drafting and filing before the Indian Patent Office is legally restricted to registered patent agents and patent attorneys under the Patents Act 1970 — a CA firm cannot itself file or prosecute a patent application. PNPC's role is to coordinate the process end-to-end: conducting the initial prior art search and business-context assessment, working with our empanelled registered patent agents on drafting and filing, tracking every statutory deadline (RFE, FER response, renewal), verifying the correct fee category (startup/small entity/large entity), and integrating the patent decision with your company structure, DPIIT recognition, and funding roadmap.

A prior art search looks for anything — published patents anywhere in the world, scientific papers, product listings, conference presentations, even public blog posts — that discloses the invention, or something obvious from it, before your filing date. It tells you honestly whether the invention is novel and involves an inventive step before you spend money on drafting a full specification. Skipping this step, or relying only on a superficial automated search, is the single most common reason DIY-filed applications run into rejection during examination years later — after the money and time have already been spent.

Software 'per se' and mere computer programs are excluded from patentability under Section 3(k) of the Patents Act. However, an invention that uses software to achieve a specific technical effect — solving a defined technical problem, tied to specific hardware, improving how a computer system itself functions — can be patentable, even though software is involved. The distinction is nuanced and is precisely where Indian Patent Office rejections on software-related applications concentrate. A patentability opinion before filing tells you honestly which side of that line your invention falls on, and how to frame the claims to maximise the chance of falling on the patentable side.

Section 3 of the Patents Act excludes several categories outright: mere discoveries of scientific principles or abstract theories, mathematical methods and business methods, computer programs 'per se' and algorithms, mere presentation of information, methods of agriculture or horticulture, methods of medical, surgical, or diagnostic treatment of human beings or animals, and mere aesthetic creations (which fall under Designs, not Patents). Section 4 separately excludes inventions relating to atomic energy. These exclusions are strictly applied by Examiners — a patentability opinion before filing identifies whether any of these apply to your invention before drafting begins.

There is no fixed timeline, and any firm promising a specific grant date should be treated with caution. Publication happens 18 months after the priority date (or earlier if requested). A Request for Examination must be filed within 48 months of the priority date. From there, the wait for a First Examination Report and eventual grant depends heavily on the technology area and the Patent Office's workload in that field — historically ranging from roughly 2 to 5+ years from filing to grant on the ordinary track. Startups, small entities, and applicants eligible for expedited examination under Form 18A can see substantially faster movement to the First Examination Report.

A provisional application locks in a priority date with a description of the invention, without finalised claims — useful when you need to secure a filing date urgently, before a launch, demo day, or publication, while the invention is still being refined. A complete specification, with finalised claims, must then be filed within 12 months of the provisional, or the provisional lapses and the priority date is lost entirely. If the invention and its claims are already settled, filing a complete application directly from the outset saves the cost of a separate provisional filing and removes the 12-month deadline risk altogether.

The Patents Act fee schedule sets different rates for natural persons, startups (DPIIT-recognised), small entities (as defined for patent fee purposes, broadly aligned with MSME classification), and large entities — with natural persons, startups, and small entities paying a substantially reduced fee compared to large entities for the same filing. The exact fee also depends on the number of claims, pages, and whether the application is provisional, complete, or a national phase entry. PNPC verifies eligibility for the reduced fee category and ensures the correct DPIIT or Udyam evidence is attached at filing — claiming the wrong category can cause the application to be objected to on a technicality.

Not necessarily, but the clock is running. Section 31 of the Patents Act provides a limited grace period — broadly, an application filed within 12 months of the inventor's own prior public disclosure (in specific circumstances, such as display at a recognised exhibition or a paper read before a learned society) may not be defeated by that disclosure alone. This grace period is narrower and more conditional than many inventors assume, and it does not protect against a third party's independent publication of the same idea in the meantime. The moment any public disclosure has happened, the priority to file moves from 'important' to 'urgent'.

Yes. Foreign nationals and NRIs can be applicants and inventors on Indian patent applications. If the invention originated with an inventor resident in India, Section 39 of the Patents Act requires either filing in India first and waiting six weeks, or obtaining a Foreign Filing Licence from the Controller, before the same or a substantially similar invention is filed in another country. This requirement exists regardless of the applicant's nationality and is one of the most commonly missed compliance points when inventors work directly with a foreign patent attorney without India-side coordination.

A Request for Examination (Form 18 or Form 18A) must be filed within 48 months of the priority date. If it is not filed within this period, the application is treated as withdrawn — the invention loses its path to grant through that application entirely, and a fresh application would not be able to claim the original, earlier priority date. This is one of the hardest deadlines in the entire patent lifecycle to recover from, because there is no restoration mechanism for a missed RFE the way there is for a lapsed renewal.

Expedited examination, requested via Form 18A, moves an application ahead of the ordinary queue for the First Examination Report. Eligibility categories prescribed under the Patent Rules include DPIIT-recognised startups, small entities, applicants where India was named as the International Searching Authority or International Preliminary Examining Authority in a corresponding PCT application, female applicants (as sole or first-named applicant, per the prescribed criteria), government undertakings, and certain other categories the Rules specify from time to time. PNPC checks current eligibility criteria against your specific applicant profile before recommending the expedited route.

In the absence of a clear contractual assignment, ownership questions between an employer and an employee-inventor can become genuinely disputed. Indian practice — reinforced by well-drafted employment agreements — generally assigns IP created within the scope of employment and using company resources to the employer, but this should be an explicit, signed contractual term, not an assumption. PNPC reviews employment and consulting agreements specifically for whether the IP assignment clause actually covers patent rights (not just copyright or vaguely worded 'work product'), and prepares a formal Assignment Deed where the contractual position needs to be made explicit before filing.

All three are separate IP rights and are frequently confused. A trademark protects your brand name, logo, or tagline — how customers identify you in the market. A patent protects a specific technical invention — how your product or process works. Copyright protects the original expression of source code, written content, or creative works automatically on creation, without registration (though registration provides evidentiary benefits). A single product can carry all three simultaneously — a patented core technology, a trademarked brand name, and copyrighted source code and documentation — and a complete IP strategy for a startup typically addresses all three, not just one in isolation.

PNPC coordinates the Indian leg of the process directly and works alongside international patent counsel and our empanelled agents for the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) route or direct Convention filings abroad. A PCT application, filed within 12 months of the Indian priority filing, preserves the option to enter the national phase in multiple countries later — typically within 31 months of the priority date. For India-origin inventions, the Section 39 Foreign Filing Licence requirement applies before any foreign filing, regardless of which route is used, and PNPC ensures this clearance is obtained or the required waiting period observed before international filing proceeds.

PNPC agrees a fixed, written fee for the prior art search and patentability opinion before work begins — the fee depends on the technology complexity and the breadth of the search (India-only versus international databases and literature). Filing and prosecution fees (charged by the registered patent agent, separate from government fees) are quoted separately once the filing strategy is decided, because complete specification drafting effort varies significantly with invention complexity and claim scope. We do not quote a single bundled 'patent registration' price upfront the way portals do for company incorporation, because the actual scope of work genuinely varies invention to invention.

Yes — an individual applicant is legally permitted to file and prosecute their own patent application before the Indian Patent Office without engaging a registered patent agent. In practice, patent specifications require precise legal-technical claim drafting where a single poorly worded claim can determine whether the patent, once granted, is actually enforceable or trivially worked around by a competitor. Most self-filed applications by inventors without patent drafting experience run into avoidable objections at the examination stage, or are granted with claims narrower than the invention actually warranted.

Form 27 is the statement regarding the 'working' of a patented invention in India — historically an annual filing requirement for patentees and licensees under the Patents Rules. The frequency, format, and thresholds for this requirement have been revised under recent amendments to the Patent Rules, and the current obligation should be confirmed against the rules in force at the relevant filing date rather than assumed from older practice. PNPC checks the current Form 27 requirement applicable to each granted patent under our engagement at the relevant time and files accordingly.

Renewal fees are payable annually starting from the third year of the patent term. If a renewal fee is not paid by the due date, the patent ceases to have effect. A limited restoration window exists under Section 60 of the Patents Act, requiring an application to the Controller with justification for the delay and payment of a restoration fee — but restoration is discretionary, not automatic, and the cost and uncertainty involved routinely exceed what timely renewal would have cost.

No. Patent rights are strictly territorial. An Indian patent grants exclusive rights only within India. Protection in the UAE, or any other country, requires a separate filing in that jurisdiction — either directly under that country's law (a Convention application, if filed within 12 months of the Indian priority date) or via the PCT national phase route. Businesses expanding into the UAE or GCC markets with patentable technology should plan the international filing strategy early, since the 12-month Convention deadline and the PCT national phase deadlines are both time-limited from the original Indian priority date.

Investors and acquirers conducting technical and IP due diligence specifically check: is the patent (or application) actually owned by the company, or still sitting in an individual founder's or employee's name? Are all inventors correctly named? Are renewal fees current? Is there any pending opposition, infringement claim, or licence obligation attached to it? An unassigned patent, a lapsed renewal, or ambiguous inventorship are all red flags that can delay or reduce the value of a transaction. PNPC reviews the IP ownership chain as part of transaction-readiness advisory, well before a term sheet or LOI is on the table.

A patent protects how an invention works — its technical function, process, or mechanism. A design registration, under the Designs Act 2000, protects the visual appearance of an article — its shape, configuration, pattern, or ornamentation — not how it functions. A product can have both: a novel mechanism (patentable) housed in a distinctive shape (registrable as a design). Choosing the wrong protection — filing a patent application for what is really an aesthetic design feature, or vice versa — wastes filing effort on the wrong right entirely.

Yes, in addition to the reduced government fee category, DPIIT-recognised startups can access facilitation support under Startup India's IP facilitation scheme, which historically has covered or reimbursed a portion of professional fees for patent applications when filed through empanelled facilitators, subject to the scheme's current terms, caps, and empanelled-facilitator list — all of which are updated periodically by the Startup India programme. PNPC checks the currently applicable scheme terms at the time of filing and advises whether and how a client can access this support, rather than assuming historical scheme terms still apply unchanged.

A patent attorney or registered patent agent is the professional legally authorised to draft claims, file the application, and represent the applicant before the Controller. PNPC's distinct value is coordinating the commercial and structural context around that filing: verifying the correct fee category, aligning the patent strategy with DPIIT recognition and company structure, tracking every statutory deadline across the patent's multi-year (often multi-decade) lifecycle, integrating patent ownership into fundraising and M&A readiness, and keeping the client's overall IP, tax, and compliance picture connected rather than siloed across separate advisors who never talk to each other.

A patent granted in India is valid for 20 years from the date of filing of the application (the priority date for a complete specification, or the date of the international filing for a PCT national phase application), provided renewal (annuity) fees are paid every year from the third year onward. The 20-year term is fixed by the Patents Act and cannot be extended, regardless of how long examination and grant took — which is why grant delays effectively shorten the commercially useful protection period remaining after grant.

The 'person skilled in the art' is the legal fiction used to test inventive step under Section 2(1)(ja) of the Patents Act — a hypothetical person with ordinary skill and knowledge in the relevant technical field, but no inventive capacity of their own. If the invention would have been obvious to this hypothetical skilled person, given the prior art available, it fails the inventive step requirement and cannot be patented — even if it is technically novel (i.e., not identically disclosed anywhere before). This is precisely why a prior art search alone is not sufficient — the patentability opinion must also assess whether the gap between the invention and the closest prior art would have been an obvious step for a skilled person, not just whether an identical disclosure exists.

Filing a provisional (or complete) application does not itself grant any enforceable exclusive right — that only arises on grant of the patent, though provisional rights against infringers can arise from the publication date under Section 11A onward, enforceable once the patent is eventually granted. You are free to use, sell, or manufacture your own invention commercially after filing (subject to any other regulatory approvals your product needs) — filing does not restrict your own use of your own invention. What filing does is establish your priority date and start the clock on the statutory process toward exclusive rights, which take effect fully only upon grant.

Yes. Joint ownership between co-inventors, between an individual and a company, or between two companies (for example, in a joint development or research collaboration) is legally permitted. In the absence of a specific agreement, each joint owner generally has the right to make, use, and exploit the patented invention without needing the other's consent — but cannot grant a licence to a third party without the consent of all joint owners. Because this default position rarely reflects what collaborating parties actually intend, PNPC strongly recommends a co-ownership or joint development agreement addressing licensing consent, cost-sharing for renewals, and exit/buyout terms before, or at the latest during, the filing process.

The claims define the precise legal boundary of what is protected — everything else in the specification (description, drawings, abstract) exists to support and explain the claims, but only the claims themselves determine what a competitor can and cannot do without infringing. A claim drafted too broadly risks rejection because it is anticipated by prior art the search uncovered; a claim drafted too narrowly may be granted easily but leaves a competitor free to design around it with a trivial modification, making the patent commercially close to worthless despite being technically valid. Claim drafting is the specialised skill a registered patent agent brings that a generic legal or business document drafter does not.

A patent watch is an ongoing monitoring service that tracks new patent filings and published applications in your technology area — both to catch potential infringers early and to stay aware of competitors' filings that might affect your own freedom to operate. It is not a mandatory step, but for companies in fast-moving or crowded technology fields, or where a patent represents core commercial value, ongoing monitoring materially improves the odds of catching infringement early, when enforcement options (cease-and-desist, negotiation) are cheaper and more effective than after infringement has become established in the market.

It depends on whether the invention can realistically be reverse-engineered once the product is in the market. A patent requires public disclosure of how the invention works (in exchange for a time-limited exclusive right), while a trade secret protects information indefinitely as long as it remains genuinely secret and reasonable steps are taken to protect it — but offers no protection at all if a competitor independently discovers or reverse-engineers the same solution. Manufacturing processes, formulations, and internal algorithms that are not visible or discoverable from the finished product are often better protected as trade secrets; product features that are inherently visible or discoverable from the product itself are usually better protected by a patent, since trade secret protection is not viable once the 'secret' is apparent from the product.

A hearing before the Controller (or an authorised officer) is scheduled when the applicant's written response to a First Examination Report has not fully satisfied the Examiner's objections, or when the applicant specifically requests one. It is an opportunity — typically conducted in person or via video conference — for the applicant's patent agent to present arguments and, if needed, propose further claim amendments directly to the decision-maker, rather than only through written correspondence. It is procedural rather than adversarial in the litigation sense — the goal is to resolve genuine patentability objections, not to contest an opposing party (that happens separately, in opposition or revocation proceedings, where a third party is involved).

Yes, through our empanelled patent agents. A pre-grant opposition can be filed by any person after publication and before grant; a post-grant opposition can be filed by an interested person within 12 months of grant. PNPC coordinates both defending a client's own application or granted patent against an opposition, and filing an opposition against a competitor's application or patent where our client has a genuine commercial interest and legal grounds (typically prior art the competitor's application failed to disclose, or a Section 3 patentability exclusion the Examiner missed).

PNPC operates from Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, and Dubai, and coordinates cross-border IP matters as a single engagement rather than splitting them across disconnected advisors in each country. Where inventive work happens in India — even partially, or by an India-resident inventor working for a UAE entity — the Section 39 Foreign Filing Licence requirement under the Patents Act applies before filing outside India, and needs to be checked regardless of where the company itself is incorporated. We map out the inventorship, ownership, and filing sequence across both jurisdictions from the first conversation, rather than discovering a compliance gap after a foreign filing has already been made.

A patent attorney working in isolation drafts and files the application competently but typically does not track how the patent decision interacts with your company structure, your DPIIT status, your fundraising timeline, or your broader IP portfolio — and a DIY filing portal, if one is used for patents at all, has even less visibility into any of that. PNPC's role is the coordination layer: we bring the commercial and compliance context to the patent agent's technical drafting work, track every deadline across a process that can run for decades (filing, publication, examination, grant, and renewal for 20 years), and make sure the patent sits correctly within your company's ownership structure and growth plans rather than as an isolated technical filing nobody is actively managing.