• A patent is a legal protection that permits its holder, for a limited period, the right to exclude others from misusing (making, using, selling, importing) the patented invention, except with the agreement of the owner of the patent.
• A patent is a form of 'industrial property', which can be assigned, transferred, licensed or used by the owner.
• Patents are territorial in effect e.g.; an Indian patent is only valid in India.
• Indian patents, in common with most jurisdictions, have a maximum lifespan of twenty years. To maintain a patent in force, a small annual renewal fee must be paid each year from the third year.

Patent pending

Patent Pending is often used to alert competitors that an application has already been made to protect the invention. It also describes an application that has been filed with the patent office but has not allotted as a patent. Patent-pending protects the inventor, but whether a patent will be even issued, is still undetermined.

Only an inventor can apply for a patent. In case if there are two or more than two people participating in the creation of an invention, as per law, all participants have to apply for a patent as a joint inventor. If a person is making only a financial contribution to an invention, he/she can't be named as a joint inventor.

Types of Patents:

There are different types of patents, but the two following patents are the type entrepreneurs use most often:

Design Patent

• It gives protection on appearance or ornamental design of your invention
• To receive a design patent, your invention must pass these tests:
• It must have a new, original and ornamental design.
• The novel features of your design must not be obvious.

Utility patent

• It protects the function or method of one’s invention.
• To obtain a utility patent, the invention must pass four tests:
• Statutory-class test: Your invention must be a process, a machine, manufacture, composition or a "new use" of any one or more of these taxonomies.
• Utility test: Your invention must solve a purpose and considered as useful.
• Novelty test: Your invention has a unique feature that sets it apart from any previous inventions in the same field.
• Non-obviousness test: Your invention's novelty must not be common to someone who has usual skill in the area of your invention. For example, if your invention is a computer chip, the uniqueness of its features must not be similar to another computer chip performing the same task.

Patents may be granted for inventions in any field of technology, from a small daily use product to quantum computing technology. An invention can be a product or can be a process.

• A patent gives you the legal right to stop others from copying, selling, manufacturing, or importing your invention without your prior permission/consent.
• Protection for a period of 20 years
• You can use your invention yourself and generate revenue or royalty.
• You can license your patent for others to sell, use or transfer. This can provide an important source of revenue for your business. There are few businesses exist solely to collect the royalties from a patent they have been licensed.
• If above benefits satisfy your requirements, then patent registration is mandatory for you to protect your invention.

• Photo ID Proof of Owner (Aadhaar card / Arms License / Department ID / Driving License / Freedom Fighter ID card / Pan Card / Passbook / Passport / Ration Card / Voter ID card
• Address Proof (Aadhaar card / Arms License / Department ID / Driving License / Freedom Fighter ID Card / Pan Card /Passbook / Passport / Ration Card / Voter ID card)
• In case of Company: Certificate of Incorporation and Address proof is required (MOA / Company Incorporation Documents / Partnership Deed / GST Certificate)
• Provisional specifications (If complete specifications are not available.)
• Declaration (Declaration as to inventorship for applications with complete specification or a convention application.)
• Authority Letter (If patent application is being filed by a Patent Consultant) 
• The Application form should also indicate clearly the source of geographical origin of any biological material used in the specification.
• All patent applications must bear the signature of the applicant or authorized person or Patent Attorney along with date and name.

• Step 1:   The invention (idea or concept) must be written down with as many details as possible

The inventor or authorized person is required to collect all the information about invention such as the:

1. The area of invention
2. The description of the invention
3. How does the invention work?
4. The advantages of the invention

• Step 2: The inventor must include drawings, diagrams or sketches explaining the working of the invention

The diagrammatic form must be illustrated in such a way that It helps to explain the working of the invention in a better way with visual illustrations. These play an important role in the patent application.

• Step 3: The inventor is required to check whether the invention is a patentable subject matter or not

This is because all the inventions may not be patentable, as per the Indian Patent Act, 1970; there are certain inventions that are not patentable.

• Step 4: Patentability search

The inventor needs to find out whether his invention meets all the patentability criteria as per the Indian patent act or not. The needs that are required to be checked are:

1. Novelty
2. Non-obviousness
3. Industrial application
4. Enabling

The patentability opinion is provided by the patent professionals by conducting an extensive search and forming the patentability report.

• Step 5: The inventor is then required to Draft a patent application

In case if the inventor is at a very early stage in the research and development for his invention, then he can go a for a provisional application. It gives him the following benefits:

1. It helps to Secure the filing date
2. There are 12 months of time to file complete specification
3. The cost is very low

After filing the provisional patent application, the inventor secures the filing date which is very crucial in the patent world.  The inventor gets 12 months of time to come up with the complete specification and upon expiry of 12 months, the patent application will be abandoned.

When the inventor completes the required documents and his research work is at a level where he can have prototype and experimental results to prove his inventive step then he can file complete specification with the patent application.

• Step 6: The investor then has to do Publication of the application

Upon the filing of the complete specification along with the application for the patent, the application is published only after 18 months of the first filing.

An early publication request can although be made along with the prescribed fees if the inventor does not wish to wait till the expiry of the 18 months period from the date of filing for publishing his patent application.

• Step 7: Request for examination

The patent application is examined only after when a request for the examination that is RFE is received.  When the controller receives this request, the patent application which is given by the inventor to the controller gives this to a patent examiner who examines the patent application with different patentability criteria like:

1. Patentable subject matter
2. Novelty
3. Non-obviousness
4. Inventive step
5. Industrial application
6. Enabling

The examiner will firstly create a first examination report of the patent application after it reviews it based on the above terms. This process is called as patent prosecution. The first examination report is submitted to the controller by the examiner which generally contains the prior arts (existing documents before the date of filing) which are similar to that of the claimed invention, and it is same like that which is reported to the patent applicant.

• Step 8: The inventor is then required to respond to the objections

Based on the examination report the majority of patent applicants receive some type of objections.  The best thing which the patent applicant has to do is that he must analyze the examination report with the patent professional (patent agent) and then create a response to the objections which are raised in the examination report.

This gives a chance for the inventor to communicate his novelty over the prior arts that are found in the examination report. The inventor and the patent agent create and send a response to the examination who then proves it to the controller that his invention is indeed patentable and that it satisfies all the patentability criteria’s.

• Step 9: Clearing all the objections

The communication that is between the controller and the patent applicant is to ensure that all the objections that are raised in the patent application are resolved and if the objections in the patent application are not cleared then it will not be granted.  The inventor has a fair chance to prove his point and to establish a novelty and take an inventive step over the existing prior arts.

• Step 10: The grant of a patent

The application would then be placed in order to give the grant once it is found that the patent application meets all the patentability requirements. The grant of a patent is then notified in the patent journal which is published from time to time.