The product patent rule was amended on May 11, 2006 and as aresult the newly formulated rule brings in much more transparency anddecentralization of the functioning of patent office India. As per the changes patentapplications have to be published within a period of one month after the expiryof official 18 months. In case if the party involved requests for an earlypublication such application should be published before one month starting fromthe date of request.

inorder to make the process more transparent and a time bound one has introducedtimeframes for activities of . Thus, now a patent application drafting first has to bereferred to an examiner within period of a month while the controller will betaking decision regarding the submission within one month followed bysubmission of examination report within six months from the date of request ofexamination.

Patent filing process can be carried on different patent officeslocated at Delhi,Chennai and Mumbai. The services of patent agent and can beused for getting through the entire process. Resultantly, the permission offiling patents abroad has been reduced to 21 days. In order to make patentservice Indiamore effective and user friendly the time available for the applicants has alsobeen extended. Similarly the time period for requesting an examination has beenextended by almost a year while six months have been extended for filing a pregrant opposition. The applicants can also take help from patent consultancy India forinformation on newly amended product patent rule.  The same has been done in respect of filingfor a reply to pre grant opposition which has been extended by 1 to 3 months.The applicants will also be benefited by the extended time period for meetingthe requirements of first examination report.