The final notification bringing about the second amendment to the Patent Rules 2005 is to come out this month. The notification has been prepared after wide ranging consultations spanning two months, Dr Ajay Dua, secretary, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) informed.

The draft Patent (second amendment) Rules 2005 notified for public comments by DIPP had proposed wide ranging changes in the Patent Rules 2003 to further fine tune the operational requirements under the changed patent law.

As Pharmabiz had reported, the draft proposed to give more time to the Patents Controller to process the applications. According to the draft rules, the time for request for examination of applications has been increased from 36 months to 48 months. It had also proposed that "the period within which the request for examination under sub-section (3) of Section II B to be made shall be forty eight months from the date of priority, if applicable, or forty-eight months from the date of filing of the application in India or twelve months from the 1st day of January 2005, whichever is later."

The additional clauses proposed said that the "period within which the Controller shall refer the application and specification and other documents to the examiner in respect of the request received shall ordinarily be thirty days from the date of filing of such request".

The period within which the Controller shall dispose off the report of the examiner shall ordinarily be thirty days from the date of the receipt of such a report by the Controller, the draft had suggested. The draft also talks about the fee structure that is applicable for processing patent applications.