Last updated: January 25th, 2020 3:14 PM

Publication of Patent Application

A patent application is a request made for granting of a patent for the invention described and claimed by the applicant which is pending in a patent office. There are various stages in a patent application process, including publication of the patent application in the Patent Journal. In this article, we look at the publication of patent application through automatic publication or early publication in detail.

Automatic Publication

There are two ways in which a Patent Application can be published. They are automatic publication and early publication. The publishing of a patent application would happen automatically after eighteen months from the date of filing or date of priority. This publication is called automatic publication. Towards the end of eighteen months from the date of filing or date of priority, the application would be published in the Official Patent Journal. Automatic publication happens without the intervention of the patent application because it is compulsory to grant the patent. The patent office publishes the application in the official e-Journal ordinarily within one month from the date of expiry of 18 months from the date of filing or priority. However, a patent application might not get automatically published in the patent journal for any of the following reasons:

• Secrecy direction u/s is in force.
• The application is abandoned.
• The application is withdrawn 3 months before the publication date.

When a secrecy direction has been given to an application, the application gets published when the secrecy direction is gets cancelled during the end of the 18 months. With addition to this, applications will not be published except if a power of authority is filed.

Early Publication

A request for early publication is possible by filing form-9 and paying the prescribed fee of Rs.2,500 for a natural person or Rs.10,000 for other than a natural person. When a request is made, the application gets published within a month from the date of the request. This request will be considered if the application is not related to subject matter that is relevant to defence or atomic energy. An early publication is not held back due to the publication matching with an existing Indian patent application. When a patent application opts for early publication, any person is eligible to file the pre-grant opposition of the application anytime before granting of the patent.

Patent Form for Early Publication

The patent form for early publication, Form 9 is reproduced below for reference: [pdf-embedder url="https://www.indiafilings.com/learn/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Patent-Form-9-Early-Publication.pdf" title="Patent Form 9