Questions practitioners ask.
Short answers to the questions US patent attorneys and in-house teams ask most about India, with the rule behind each one. Reviewed October 2026.
What is the deadline for PCT national phase entry in India?
31 months from the earliest priority date, under Rule 20(4)(i) of the Patents Rules, 2003. India does not apply the 30-month default used by most offices. Treat 31 months as a hard deadline: extensions for national phase entry are not routinely granted.
When must a request for examination be filed in India?
Within 31 months from the priority date or the filing date, whichever is earlier, on Form 18 (Rule 24B, as amended in 2024). India does not examine without a request, and an application with no request in time is treated as withdrawn.
What is Form 3 and when is it due?
Form 3 is the statement and undertaking under Section 8 listing corresponding foreign applications. Since the 2024 amendment it must be filed within three months of the first examination report. Many practitioners still file it with the application to avoid a missed deadline.
Do foreign patentees have to file Form 27 in India?
Yes. Every patentee files a statement of working on Form 27, now once for each block of three financial years, within six months after the block ends. The first block starts with the financial year after the year of grant.
Does India have a patent grace period like the US one-year rule?
No general grace period. Sections 29 to 34 excuse only narrow disclosures, such as display at a notified exhibition or a paper read before a learned society, within 12 months. An inventor's own publication otherwise destroys novelty in India, as it does at the EPO.
Do US companies with R&D teams in India need permission before filing in the US?
Usually yes. Under Section 39, a person resident in India cannot first file abroad without written permission from the Controller, unless an Indian application was filed at least six weeks earlier with no secrecy direction. Breach can lead to the Indian application being treated as abandoned and the patent revoked.
Does a US work-made-for-hire clause give us copyright in code written by an Indian contractor?
No. Indian law has no work-for-hire route for independent contractors. You need a written assignment signed by the contractor under Section 19 of the Copyright Act, 1957. If it does not state territory, it covers India only, and if it does not state duration, it lasts five years.
Can Apache-2.0 code be combined with GPL-2.0-only code?
Not in a distributed work. The patent-termination and indemnity terms in Apache-2.0 are treated as incompatible with GPL-2.0-only. Apache-2.0 code can be combined with GPL-3.0, or with GPL-2.0-or-later code distributed under version 3.
Does the EU AI Act apply to US companies?
Yes, when a US company places an AI system on the EU market or its output is used in the EU. Prohibitions apply from 2 February 2025, general-purpose model duties from 2 August 2025, and transparency duties from 2 August 2026.
When do EU AI Act high-risk obligations apply after the AI Omnibus?
Regulation (EU) 2026/1744, in force 27 July 2026, moved stand-alone high-risk systems under Annex III to 2 December 2027. AI embedded in products under EU product-safety law (Annex I) moved to 2 August 2028.
Does India have an AI law?
Not a dedicated statute. MeitY's India AI Governance Guidelines (November 2025) are voluntary. Binding rules come from existing law: the IT Rules amendment requiring labels on synthetic content from 20 February 2026, and the DPDP Act, 2023, whose main duties phase in by May 2027.
How long does chip layout-design protection last, and when must you register?
Ten years in both India and the US. In the US, a mask work must be registered within two years of first commercial exploitation or protection ends. In India, a layout design exploited commercially for more than two years before filing cannot be registered.
What is the CPC Y02 classification?
Y02 is the EPO's tagging scheme for climate change mitigation and adaptation technologies, with Y04S for smart grids. The tags sit on top of the main classification, so they help with green-technology landscapes and portfolio reporting rather than examination.
How do you submit comments on an Indian government consultation?
Follow the notice: most ministries ask for comments by email to a named address, in a clause-by-clause table giving the provision, the proposed change and the justification, within a fixed window that is often 30 days.
Who runs Akhilesh IP Exchange?
Akhil, a Registered Indian Patent Agent (IN/PA 1303) with over 17 years of patent work before the USPTO, EPO and Indian Patent Office, and degrees in computer science and law. Every tool is free, needs no sign-up and runs in your browser; nothing you enter is sent anywhere.