The Patents (Amendment) Rules, 2021 came into effect on September 21, 2021 by amending the Patents Rules 2003.
Key Points
- By amending the rules, Union Government has reduced the patent filing and processing fees that are charged on educational institutions by 80%.
- This reduction in fees is at par with similar concession available to start-ups under the Start-up India initiative.
Why patent fees have been reduced?
- While applying for patents, innovators have to apply these patents in the name of institutions which have to pay very high fees for large applicants and thus work as a disincentive.
- Thus, to encourage greater participation of the educational institutions, playing a significant role in India’s innovation, official fees have been reduced.
- According to DPIIT, educational institutions engage in various research activities, where professors or teachers as well as students generate several new technologies that are required to be patented in order to facilitate commercialization of the same.
- But high patenting fees restricts these technologies to get patented and thus work as a disincentive for development of new technologies.
- To do away this problem, Patents rules have been amended several time in order to achieve the objective of removing procedural inconsistencies and unnecessary steps to process the applications.
By amending the Rules, the procedures are made more compact, time-bound, user- friendly and compatible for e-transactions. In this regard, following initiatives have been taken by the Department:
i. Augmentation of manpower by recruiting new examiners.
ii. Making process of applying and granting patents completely online.
iii. Hearing of cases in Patents through Video-Conferencing for speedy and contact-less proceedings.
iv. Dynamic redesigning of website and real time based hassle free dissemination of IP information to stakeholders.
v. Encouraging the digital process for applying & granting Patents.
vi. Scheme for Facilitating Startups Intellectual Property Protection (SIPP) has been launched to provide facilitators to Startups for filing and processing of their applications. Professional charges of such facilitators are reimbursed as per provisions under the SIPP scheme.
vii. For Startup India program, 80% fee concession has been provided for Patent applications filed by Startups.