A patent is an exclusive ownership right granted by a country to the owner of an invention, provided the invention satisfies certain conditions stipulated in the law. A Letters Patent (a kind of certificate) is issued to the owner of the invention by the patent office of the Country conferring this right. Exclusivity of right implies that no one else can make, use, manufacture or market the invention without the consent of the patent holder. This right is available to the owner of the invention only for a limited period of time. However, the use or exploitation of a patent may be affected by other laws of the country which has awarded the patent. These laws may relate to health, safety, food, security etc.

A patent in the law is a property right and hence, it can be gifted, inherited, assigned, sold or licensed. As the right is conferred by the State, it can be revoked by the State under very special circumstances for the benefit of public even if the patent has been sold or licensed or manufactured or marketed in the meantime. The patent right is territorial in nature meaning thereby, that a patent granted in India can only be enforced in India. In case the owner of the invention wishes to obtain patents in other countries, the owner will have to file separate patent applications in countries of his interest, along with necessary fees.

Invention means a new product involving an inventive step and capable of industrial application.

Capable of industrial application means that the invention is capable of being made or used in an industry.

An invention may satisfy the condition of novelty, inventiveness and usefulness but it may not qualify for a patent under the following situations:

1. an invention which is frivolous or which claims anything obviously contrary to well established natural laws;
2. an invention the primary or intended use or commercial exploitation of which could be contrary to public order or morality or which causes serious prejudice to human, animal or plant life or health or to the environment;
3. the mere discovery of scientific principle or the formulation of an abstract theory or discovery of any living thing or non-living substance occurring in nature;
4. the mere discovery of a new form of a known substance which does not result in enhancement of the known efficacy of that substance or the mere discovery of any new property or new use for a known substance or of the mere use of a known process, machine or apparatus unless such known process results in a new product or employs at least one new reactant; Explanation: For the purposes of this clause, salts, esters, ethers, polymorphs, metabolites, pure form, particle size, isomers, mixtures of isomers, complexes, combinations and other derivatives of known substance shall be considered to be the same substance, unless they differ significantly in properties with regards to efficacy.
5. a substance obtained by mere admixture resulting only in the aggregation of the properties of the components thereof or a process for producing such substance;
6. the mere arrangement or re-arrangement or duplication of known devices each functioning independently of one another in a known way;
7. a method of agriculture or horticulture;
8. any process for medicinal, surgical, curative, prophylactic (diagnostic, therapeutic) or other treatment of human beings or any process for a similar treatment of animals to render them free of disease or to increase their economic value or that of their products;
9. plants and animals in whole or any part thereof other than microorganisms but including seeds, varieties and species and essentially biological process for production or propagation of plants and animals;
10. a mathematical or business method or a computer program per se or algorithms;
11. a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work or any other aesthetic creation whatsoever including cinematographic works and television productions;
12. a mere scheme or rule or method of performing mental act or method of playing game;
13. a presentation of information;
14. topography of integrated circuits;
15. an invention which, in effect, is traditional knowledge or which is an aggregation or duplication of known properties of traditionally known component or components;
16. inventions relating to atomic energy.

Filing of an application for a patent should be completed at the earliest possible date and should not be delayed. An application field with provisional specification, disclosing the essence of the nature of the invention helps to register the priority by the applicant. Delay in filing an application may entail some risks such as i) some other inventor might file a patent application on the said invention and ii) there may be either an inadvertent publication of the invention by the inventor himself/herself or by others independently of him/her.

The date of patent is the date of filing the application for patent (whether provisional or complete). The term of the patent is counted from this date.

The Act now provides for pre-grant and post-grant opposition. Pre-grant opposition can be filed after the publication of patent application and before the grant of patent. Post-grant opposition can be filed within one year of the grant of the patent. An opposition board will be constituted for each of the opposition notifications accepted by the controller for the post grant opposition proceedings. Opposition in both cases will be allowed on all grounds specified in the Act.

Pre-grant and post-grant opposition can be filed only on the following grounds:

1. Claimed invention or its part wrongfully obtained;
2. Claimed invention is published in a patent or any other document before the priority date;Claimed invention is published in a patent after the priority date having earlier priority date;
3. Claimed invention was publicly known or publicly used before the priority date;
4. Claimed invention is obvious and does not involve clearly any inventive step, as regards to the matter published or used (in India) before the priority date;
5. Claimed invention is not an invention within the meaning of the Patents Act or is not patentable under the Patents Act;
6. The complete specification does not sufficiently and clearly describe the invention or the method by which it is to be performed;
7. The applicant has failed to disclose to the controller the information regarding foreign applications filed by him for the same invention or has furnished the information which in any material particular was false to his knowledge;
8. In case of convention application if the application is not filed before the expiry of 12 months from the date of first application in convention country;
9. The complete specification does not disclose or wrongly mentions the source and geographical origin of biological material used in the invention;
10. Claimed invention was anticipated having regard to the knowledge, oral or otherwise available within any local or indigenous community in India or elsewhere.

No. There is nothing like a global patent or a world patent. Patent rights are essentially territorial in nature and are protected only in a country (or countries), which has (have) granted these rights. Therefore, the patent could only be enforced in such countries. In other words, for obtaining patent rights in different countries one has to submit patent applications in all the countries of interest for grant of patents. This would entail payment of official fees and associated expenses, like the attorney fees, essential for obtaining patent rights in each country. However, there are some regional systems where by filling one application, one could simultaneously obtain patents in the member countries of a regional system; European Patent Office is an example of a similar system.

Each country is free to grant or refuse a patent on the basis of scrutiny by its patent office. This means that grant of a patent in one country does not guarantee that some other country will also grant patent for the same invention. Similarly, the refusal of the patent in one country does not mean that it will be refused in other countries.

The Indian Patent Act has included microorganisms discovered from nature in the list of items not patentable. However, genetically modified microorganisms will be patentable. The process for producing microorganisms etc. will also be patentable. Many countries allow patenting of genetically modified microorganisms but a few also allow patenting of naturally occurring microorganisms if isolated from nature for the first time and if other conditions of patentability are satisfied.

The Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) is a multilateral treaty entered into force in 1978. Through PCT, an inventor of a member country (Contracting State) of PCT can simultaneously obtain priority for his/her invention in all the member countries, without having to file a separate application in those countries, by filing of PCT application, which is popularly known as International Application. India joined the PCT on December 7,1998.

In order to protect your invention in other countries, you are required to file an independent patent application in each country of interest; in some cases, within a stipulated time to obtain priority in these countries. This would entail a large investment, within a short time, to meet costs towards filing fees, translation, attorney charges etc. In addition you are making an assumption which, due to the short time available for making the decision on whether to file a patent application in a country or not, may not be well founded.

Inventors of Contracting States of PCT on the other hand can simultaneously obtain priority for their inventions without having to file separate application in the countries of interest; thus saving the initial investments towards filing fees, translation etc. In addition the system provides much longer time for filing patent application in member countries. The time available under Paris Convention for securing priority in other countries is 12 months from the date of initial filing. Under the PCT, the time available could be a minimum of 20 months and maximum of 31 months. Further, an inventors is also benefited by the search report prepared under the PCT system to be sure that the claimed invention is novel. The inventor could also opt preliminary examination before filing in other countries to be doubly sure about the patentability of the invention.