You told people first
An exhibition, a competition, a video, a post. Public disclosure can destroy the novelty a patent needs — and there is usually no way back.
For individual inventors and first-time filers
Prior-art search at no charge before you commit to anything
You do not need a company, a lawyer on retainer, or a laboratory. You need to file before you tell anyone.
Individuals can and do hold patents in India. What stops most people is not eligibility or cost — it is showing the idea to someone before filing on it. That one step, in the wrong order, is what turns a protectable invention into a story about one.
8,000+Prior-art searches
3,200+Patents filed
2,400+FER replies filed
11,000+Novel ideas in possession
Your novelty window
Openuntil you disclose
Each of these can close it:
Exhibition stallPitch deckSocial postJournal paperProduct launch
Track record
Our track record
Most of what we file starts exactly where you are — one person with an idea and no idea what the first step is.
8,000+Prior-art searches
3,200+Patents filed
2,400+FER replies filed
11,000+Clients served
The pattern
What usually goes wrong
All four are ordinary, none of them are stupid, and three of the four are avoidable with a single conversation before you act.
You never checked whether it exists
Somebody has often already filed on it. Finding that out costs a search; finding it out after drafting costs the drafting too.
You asked for a patent and needed a design
If what is new is the shape or appearance, a design registration is faster and much simpler than a patent. The right question comes before the right form.
It was filed, but claimed almost nothing
A patent is only as wide as its claims. A cheap specification that claims one narrow embodiment is easy to design around and hard to enforce.
The work
What we do for individual innovators
The whole route, in the order it should happen — and we will tell you if the answer is that there is nothing to file.
A prior-art search, at no charge
Before you spend anything, we check whether the idea is already out there. If it is, you have saved the rest.
A confidentiality agreement first
Nothing is discussed in detail until an NDA is in place. Disclosure is the risk this whole page is about.
Deciding which right fits
Patent, design, trademark or copyright — often more than one, and rarely the one people expect.
Drafting the specification
Provisional to secure the date, complete when the invention has settled. Claims written to cover more than one version of it.
Filing and prosecution
Filed in your name, then carried through examination — including the first examination report, which is where most individual filings stall.
What to do with it afterwards
Licensing or transfer through IP BANK India if you would rather someone else built it.
Not necessarily over
If you have already disclosed it
People assume a disclosure ends the conversation. Often it narrows it instead — and the only way to know is to say exactly what happened, and when.
Tell us three things
- What exactly you showed — the working principle, or only the outside of it
- Who saw it, and whether anyone was under an obligation of confidence
- When it happened, as precisely as you can date it
Those three answers decide whether anything survives. A closed demonstration under NDA is not the same as a public exhibition, and a video of the outside of a product is not the same as a description of how it works.
What we will not tell you
That it is definitely fine. Whether a disclosure destroyed novelty is a legal question decided on the facts and, ultimately, by an office or a court — not something anyone can promise you over the phone.
What we can do is tell you honestly whether it is worth filing, and say so plainly if it is not. We would rather lose the fee than take it for something that cannot work.
Free prior-art search first — then a written quote
What determines the cost of your filing
The prior-art search comes first and costs you nothing, so you can find out whether there is anything to protect before money is involved at all. Beyond that we quote in writing against your actual invention rather than publishing a package, because these five things move the number a long way.
Official government fees are quoted separately from professional fees. Natural persons and startups pay substantially reduced official fees at the Indian Patent Office — as an individual, you are in the lowest fee band available.
Which right you need
A design registration, a provisional patent and a complete specification are very different pieces of work.
How complex the invention is
A single mechanism drafts faster than a system with several interacting parts.
How much you already have
Clear drawings and a written description shorten the drafting; a conversation and a sketch lengthen it.
India only, or abroad as well
Every additional country is its own filing, its own fees and often its own translation.
What happens after filing
Examination reports and objections are where individual applications most often stall, and where representation matters most.
Straight answers
Questions we are asked most
Can an individual file a patent in India without a company?
Yes. A natural person can apply in their own name, and individuals are in the lowest official-fee band the Indian Patent Office offers — considerably cheaper than a company filing the same application. You do not need to incorporate, and incorporating purely in order to file usually makes the filing more expensive rather than less.
I have shown my idea at a college exhibition. Is it too late?
Not automatically, but it is now a fact-specific question and it needs answering quickly. What matters is what you actually showed, to whom, under what obligation, and on what date — a sealed box on a stall is not the same as a poster explaining the mechanism. Tell us those details and we will give you a straight read, including telling you if there is nothing left to file.
What is the cheapest way to start?
The prior-art search, because we do not charge for it — and it is the step that most often saves people the entire rest of the budget by showing the idea already exists. If it is clear, a provisional application is normally the least expensive way to secure a priority date, and it buys twelve months before the complete specification is due. We will quote both in writing before you commit to anything.
Do I need a prototype?
No. What you need is a description complete enough that someone skilled in the field could build it from your specification — drawings, dimensions, materials, how the parts interact. A prototype helps you write that description, and it helps you sell the thing later, but it is not a filing requirement. Many granted patents were filed on paper alone.
Who owns the patent if you draft it?
You do. The application is filed in your name as applicant, and you are named as inventor. We are your representative, not a co-owner, and we take no share in the invention or in anything you earn from it. That is stated in the engagement before any work starts.
Not quite you?
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Send us the idea. The search is free.
Under NDA, before anything is discussed in detail. If there is nothing worth filing, we will tell you that instead of quoting for it.