Patent (2nd Amendment) Rules 2020 Notified

Last month on 20 October 2020, the Patent (Amendment) Rules 2020 (Revised Rules 2020) came into force whereby the provisions pertaining to filing of priority document and filing of statement of commercial working were amended. Our Ergo on the Revised Rules 2020 can be accessed here. Now, the Patent (2^nd Amendment) Rules, 2020 (2^nd Revised Rules 2020) have been issued on 4 November 2020 with immediate effect.  The key highlights of the 2^nd Revised Rules 2020 are broadly set out below:

• The fees applicable to small entities for filing and prosecuting Indian patent applications have been reduced and made at par with those of natural persons / start-ups.
• No difference in the scale of fees shall be payable in case the small entity ceases to be a small entity after filing a patent application (a similar provision already exists for start-up entities).