IP Intelligence
Patent Criticalities
The things that quietly decide whether an invention can be protected - explained before they cost you anything.
Showing 12 of 56.
Nobody wrote down who owns it
An invention belongs to its inventors unless something in writing moves it. Filing in the company's name does not by itself transfer anything. Ownership defects are …
The reply that quietly gave the patent away
A first examination report is an opening position, not a rejection. The two ways applicants lose value here are missing the date, and buying a grant by conceding mor…
The invention is new - and still not patentable
Indian law has a filter that operates completely independently of novelty and inventive step. Section 3 lists things that are not inventions at all - and something c…
Why a good invention still gets a Section 3 objection
A section 3 objection is a subject-matter objection, and it is answered by evidence and framing rather than by arguing about the prior art. Each clause has its own t…
Software claimed as software
You cannot patent a computer programme per se. You can, on current Indian authority, patent an invention that happens to be implemented in software if it delivers a …
The description is thinner than the claim needs
A patent is a trade: a monopoly for a teaching. If the teaching would not let a competent person in your field reproduce the invention across the width of the claim,…
Searching once, at the wrong moment
Most organisations search once, just before filing, and treat the result as a verdict. Searching is more useful when it is treated as a repeated activity with a diff…
The wrong people are named as inventors
Inventorship is not authorship, seniority or reward. It is a factual question about who devised the invention **as claimed** - and because claims change during prose…
The provisional that covered nothing
A provisional specification buys a date for the subject matter it actually describes. A two-page document that states the idea without explaining how it works buys a…
The danger of filing too early
Filing early is usually right. Filing before there is anything to describe is not. A premature application starts clocks - twelve months to a complete specification,…
Filing abroad first, without permission
A person resident in India may not apply outside India for a patent without written permission from the Controller, unless an application for the same invention was …
Why enablement and support are different objections
Support asks whether the claim is fairly based on what you described. Enablement asks whether a skilled person could actually perform it across the claim's width. Th…
This is the Ragulika IP Educational Criticality - our own editorial prioritisation device, to help you decide what to read first. It is not a legal score, it is not calculated from your facts, and it says nothing about the strength of any particular application.
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Educational guidance, not legal advice. This material is published by Ragulika IP for general education and information. It is not legal advice, it does not create a professional-client relationship, and it is not a substitute for advice on your own facts. Patentability, infringement, prosecution strategy and every other IP outcome turn on the specific facts and on the law and Patent Office practice as they stand at the time you act. Please take professional advice before making a decision, and read the underlying provision or judgment before relying on any point stated here.