Filing outside India without wasting money

The two deadlines that drive everything

Twelve months from your first filing to file abroad or to file a PCT application claiming priority. Then, if you took the PCT route, roughly thirty or thirty-one months from priority to enter national phases. Indian national phase entry is thirty-one months and should be treated as absolute.

Decide the market list by month nine. The last three months should be for executing a decision, not making one.

One thing many Indian founders miss

If any inventor is resident in India, section 39 requires written permission from the Controller before applying outside India, unless an application for the same invention was filed in India at least six weeks earlier and no secrecy direction followed.

It is a rule about residence, not nationality, and it catches Indian co-founders of foreign-incorporated startups routinely. Permission is a short process and is granted routinely for ordinary subject matter - the failure is almost always that nobody knew to ask.

What to actually do

• Write your priority date on a page with plus-12 and plus-31 months underneath.
• Rank countries by manufacture, sale and enforceability - not by GDP.
• Deal with section 39 before any foreign filing if an inventor lives in India.
• Model the national phase spend early so the decision is not forced by cash flow.