Chennai: In order to make the patenting procedures user-friendly the central government has notified The Patents (Amendment) Rules 2006. According to minister of commerce and industry Kamal Nath, "The recent amendments to the Patents Rules represent yet another major step forward in India's endeavour to develop a vibrant and user-friendly intellectual property regime which would facilitate as well as encourage innovation and creativity."

The thrust of the Patents Rules is to introduce transparency, decentralise the functioning of Patent Offices, simplify the procedures and to make them user-friendly, he added.
The latest amendments have been finalised through a consultative process involving patent attorneys, industry associations, government departments concerned and other stakeholders. In order to decentralise as well as facilitate patent administration, all patent-related activities can now be performed by all the patent offices at Kolkata, Chennai, Delhi and Mumbai.

As per the new rules, patent applications will now be compulsorily published within one month after expiry of the statutory period of 18 months and, in case of request for an early publication, the application should be published within one month from the date of request. This step will introduce an element of certainty regarding the date of publication, which was, till now, not available.

With a view to enforcing transparency and ensuring time-bound disposal of patent applications, definitive time frames have been prescribed for various activities by the patent offices.

A patent application now has to be referred to an examiner within one month of a request for its examination. Further, the controller will now be required to take a decision on the report of the examiner within one month of its submission and the first examination report has also to be issued within six months of the date of request for examination of a patent application. The time for granting permission to file patents abroad has also been reduced to just 21 days.

Further the timelines available for applicants and the public have also been extended. Accordingly the time frame for:

• Making a request for examination has been extended from 36 to 48 months
  
• Filing a pre-grant opposition extended from three to six months
  
• Filing reply to pre-grant opposition extended from one to three months
  
• Meeting the requirements of the first examination report increased to 12 months.