State Patent Reimbursement Schemes in India: Who Actually Pays, and When

On this page

• Quick answer
• Four different things get called “patent assistance”
• What each state pays, in one table
• The states in detail
• The two central layers, and the one that just disappeared
• The five conditions that decide whether you get paid
• The clock you did not know was running
• You cannot fund the same filing twice
• What none of this money covers
• Common mistakes
• When the subsidy should not decide anything
• How MYCrave can help
• Conclusion
• Frequently asked questions

A list has been going around. Karnataka pays ₹2 lakh. Telangana pays ₹2 lakh. Maharashtra pays ₹2 lakh. Madhya Pradesh pays ₹5 lakh. Ten lakh if the patent is foreign. Read it quickly and a patent starts to look like something the government funds and you merely arrange.

The figures in those lists are broadly right. What they leave out is that almost none of this money arrives before you spend your own, that most of it is released only once a patent is granted rather than filed, and that at least one of the schemes being circulated is running on an eligibility window that closed in 2022.

This guide sets out what each major state actually pays, what triggers payment, which conditions decide whether you ever see it, and how the state layer sits on top of the two central schemes. It is written for the person about to spend real money on a filing, not for the person forwarding the list.

Quick answer

Most Indian states with a startup or MSME policy will reimburse part of the cost of obtaining a patent. The common shape is up to ₹2 lakh for an Indian patent and up to ₹10 lakh for a foreign one, though Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Odisha are structured differently and Gujarat’s ceiling is far higher.

Three things decide whether the money reaches you: whether payment is triggered by filing or by grant (usually grant, which is three to five years away); whether you cleared the eligibility gate before filing, which often means state recognition or incubation; and whether you claim inside the scheme’s window, which can be as short as six months.

Reimbursement is not funding. You pay first.

Four different things get called “patent assistance”

This is where most of the confusion starts, and it is worth getting right before you read a single number.

Patent filing assistance pays part of the cost of getting an application on file. Money can move early. Karnataka’s incentive page describes releasing 75 per cent at the filing stage.

Post-grant reimbursement pays only after the Patent Office grants the patent. Telangana, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and the central MSME route all work this way. If your application is refused, abandoned or still queued, you get nothing, however much you spent.

Prosecution cost reimbursement covers the middle of the journey, where most of the professional work actually happens: replying to the First Examination Report, amending claims, attending a hearing. Kerala’s scheme explicitly names prosecution as one of its three release stages. Many others fund filing and grant, and quietly leave the expensive part in between to you.

Broader IPR support covers designs, trademarks, geographical indications and layout designs alongside patents, usually with much smaller sub-limits. Odisha’s MSME guidelines and the central MSME scheme both work this way. The headline number is for a patent; the trademark line may be ₹10,000.

A scheme that reimburses only after grant and a scheme that pays 75 per cent on filing are not the same product, even at identical headline figures. Treating them as interchangeable is how a founder budgets for money that will not arrive for four years.

What each state pays, in one table

Figures are government or scheme ceilings, read from the sources named in the “About this guide” block on 27 August 2026. They are caps, not entitlements. The ₹10 lakh foreign-patent figures below assume a filing route that actually reaches other countries — see our guide to international and PCT filing for how that sequence works.

This is not the full list. Several other states run comparable incentives under their startup or industrial policies. If your state is not here, check your own state’s startup portal and industries department before assuming nothing exists.

The states in detail

Gujarat: the largest ceiling, and the widest eligibility

Gujarat is the outlier, and not only on size. The scheme covers 75 per cent of the expenditure incurred in obtaining a patent, subject to ₹25 lakh within the policy period. Eligible expenditure includes fees paid to the patent attorney, patent service centre charges, registration fees and equipment purchased to develop the patent. Travel and hotel costs are excluded.

Two features matter more than the ceiling.

First, eligibility. The scheme’s own language opens it to any organization, institution, individual or industrial unit. There is no DPIIT recognition requirement, no incubation requirement and no startup age limit written into it. That is unusually broad. Most state schemes are startup instruments; Gujarat’s reads as an industrial one.

Second, timing. Assistance is released 50 per cent after the Patent Office publishes the patent and 50 per cent after the patent issues. Publication happens at 18 months from filing in the ordinary course, so a Gujarat applicant can see half the money materially earlier than a Telangana or Uttar Pradesh applicant waiting on grant. The application must reach the Industries Commissioner within 12 months from the date of publication, which is the single most missable deadline in this entire guide.

One caution, and it illustrates the theme of this article. The scheme page published by the Industries Commissionerate carries a Government Resolution dated 19 January 2015 and an operative period of 1 January 2015 to 31 December 2019. The live component sits under the Aatmanirbhar Gujarat Scheme for Assistance to MSMEs, operative from 5 October 2022 to 4 October 2027, with its own application form and checklist. The published figures have been reported consistently at 75 per cent and ₹25 lakh, with attorney fees capped at ₹50,000 for a national patent and ₹2 lakh per country for an international one. Confirm the operative Government Resolution with the Industries Commissioner’s office before you build a claim on it.

Karnataka: money at the filing stage, if you were incubated first

Karnataka reimburses the cost of filing and prosecuting a patent application up to ₹2 lakh per Indian patent and ₹10 lakh for a foreign patent on a single subject matter, released 75 per cent after filing and 25 per cent after grant. It covers fees paid to the authority and legal charges for drafting and consultation.

The gate is registration and incubation. The applicant must be a startup registered with the Karnataka Startup Cell with a valid registration number, and must be incubated either physically or virtually. The patent must have been filed within the validity of the prevailing policy. You cannot apply this retrospectively to a filing made before you registered — which is why the recognition work belongs at the start of a startup patent filing, not at claim time.

Read the official incentives page carefully before relying on the two-stage release. It sets out the 75/25 split and, in the eligibility conditions on the same page, states that the applicant should have been granted the patent for which reimbursement is claimed. Those two statements pull in different directions. Ask KITS which one governs your matter rather than assuming the more generous reading.

Kerala: the only one that names prosecution

The Kerala Startup Mission scheme reimburses up to ₹2 lakh per Indian patent awarded and up to ₹10 lakh for a foreign patent on a single subject matter, released across three stages covering filing, prosecution and grant, with no advance payment.

Covered activities are specific and unusually well documented: provisional filings, patent search, drafting, filing, claims preparation, fast-tracking fees, prosecution of claims and grant. Renewals are not covered, and neither is prosecution against an appellate authority that has already rejected the claim.

Eligibility runs to startups registered in Kerala as a private limited company or LLP within ten years of incorporation, with DPIIT recognition and Udyam or Udyog Aadhaar as required by the current portal. Student innovators apply through their institution’s IEDC, which makes this one of the few schemes genuinely reachable by a college project — and one more reason a campus is better off with a functioning IP Cell than with an ad hoc filing every few months.

Maharashtra: 80 per cent, which means 20 per cent is always yours

Under the Maharashtra State Innovative Startup Policy, startups receive an 80 per cent rebate in patent filing costs, up to ₹2 lakh for Indian patents and ₹10 lakh for international patents, released in three stages during filing, prosecution and award, administered by the Maharashtra State Innovation Society.

The 80 per cent is a co-payment share, not a discount. Even on a small filing, one rupee in five is yours regardless of how far below the ceiling you are.

Eligibility as announced requires DPIIT recognition and incorporation in Maharashtra, and for domestic patent applications, revenue below ₹1 crore since incorporation. That revenue test is the one founders miss, because it is not part of the DPIIT definition and it bites exactly when a startup starts working.

Madhya Pradesh: simple ceiling, post-grant trigger

The MP Startup Policy and Implementation Scheme 2022 provides maximum assistance of ₹5 lakh for obtaining a patent, on condition that the patent is obtained for a startup established in the state.

Note the verb. “For obtaining” is a grant trigger, not a filing trigger. The ₹5 lakh figure is generous by state standards and does not split Indian from foreign in its headline, but you reach it only at the far end of a process that commonly runs several years.

Odisha: two routes, two ceilings, one rule about which you use

Odisha runs the patent subsidy twice, through different departments.

Under the MSME Development Policy 2022, operational guidelines issued on 26 September 2025 provide 100 per cent of the registration cost up to ₹5 lakh for new and existing enterprises undertaking expansion, modernisation or diversification, with investment in plant and machinery up to ₹50 crore. The cover is broad: inventions covering process, product and apparatus, industrial designs, trademarks, geographical indications and integrated circuit layout designs. Enterprises listed at Annexure II of the policy are excluded, and a separate set of guidelines governs trade mark assistance.

Under the Startup Odisha route, registered startups can claim 100 per cent of the registration cost up to ₹10 lakh cumulative per startup, with the claim submitted within one year from the date of obtaining the registration.

If you qualify for both, the ceilings are not additive for the same asset. Establish which department your claim belongs to before you file, not after.

Telangana: the figures are published, the window is closed

Telangana’s incentive is the reason this article exists.

The Telangana Innovation Cell page publishes 100 per cent reimbursement of patent registration expenses limited to ₹2 lakh for an Indian patent awarded, and up to ₹10 lakh per awarded foreign patent, claimable within six months from the date of obtaining the patent, up to twice in the first five years from incorporation.

The same page also states that only patents filed and granted during the validity of G.O. No. 10, that is between 25 July 2017 and 25 July 2022, are eligible to claim this reimbursement. That window closed more than four years ago. The page still carries an “Apply Now” button.

There is a second inconsistency. Telangana’s Intellectual Property page describes the same incentive as releasing 50 per cent after filing and 50 per cent after grant, while the funding page describes a post-grant reimbursement. Both are live on the same government domain.

None of this means the incentive is dead. Government orders get extended, superseded and reissued without websites catching up. It does mean that no Telangana founder should treat the published figures as a budget line until the Telangana Innovation Cell confirms which Government Order is currently in force. Ask for the G.O. number and date in writing.

Uttar Pradesh: successful, and incubated

Under the UP Startup Policy 2020 as amended in 2022, the cost of filing a successful patent is reimbursed to incubated startups: ₹2 lakh for Indian patents and ₹10 lakh for international patents, administered through StartinUP with identified incubators as implementation partners.

Two words in that sentence do the work. Successful means granted, not filed. Incubated means the reimbursement runs through a recognised incubator rather than direct to you. If you are not incubated at the time of filing, the benefit is not available regardless of how good the patent turns out to be.

The two central layers, and the one that just disappeared

State schemes do not operate alone. Two central layers sit underneath them, and a third was removed this year.

The statutory fee category. The First Schedule to the Patents Rules, 2003 charges natural persons, startups, small entities and educational institutions roughly one-fifth of what other applicants pay, claimed by filing Form 28 with proof of status. This is not a reimbursement and involves no application to any scheme. You simply pay less at the counter. It is the most reliable saving available to an Indian applicant, because nobody has to approve it. We cover the mechanics, the three separate eligibility tests and the clause that can hand you a retrospective bill in our guide to the 80% patent fee rebate for startups.

The MSME Innovative Scheme. The IPR component of the Ministry of MSME’s scheme reimburses 100 per cent of actual cost up to ₹1 lakh for a domestic patent and ₹5 lakh for a foreign patent, with ₹2 lakh for a geographical indication, ₹15,000 for a design and ₹10,000 for a trademark. It requires a valid Udyam registration, is a one-time reimbursement per IP asset, and is claimed through the MSME Innovative portal after registration. Costs of renewal, assignment and correction are excluded.

SIPP, which has ended. For a decade the Scheme for Facilitating Start-Ups Intellectual Property Protection did the one thing the fee schedule does not: it paid the professional fees. A recognised startup chose an empanelled facilitator, paid only the statutory fees, and the Government reimbursed the facilitator directly. The most recently notified version of SIPP ended on 31 March 2026, and as at the date of this guide no extension or replacement has been notified.

That changes the arithmetic materially. Until April 2026, a startup could get a patent drafted and prosecuted with the professional cost largely borne by the Centre. Now the state reimbursement schemes are the main route by which attorney fees get covered at all, which is precisely why their conditions deserve more scrutiny than a forwarded list gives them. If someone tells you the Government will pay your patent agent because you hold DPIIT recognition, they are working from a page that has not been updated.

The five conditions that decide whether you get paid

Across every scheme in this guide, the same five gates recur.

1. Where the entity sits. Incorporation or registration in the state, not merely operations there. A Pune-incorporated company running a Gujarat plant does not automatically become a Gujarat applicant.

2. Which recognition you hold, and when you got it. DPIIT recognition, Udyam registration, state startup registration, or incubation. Karnataka requires its own Startup Cell number. Uttar Pradesh requires incubation. Kerala requires DPIIT plus Udyam. These are almost always tested at the date of filing, which means obtaining them afterwards does not retrofit eligibility.

3. Filing or grant. The single most consequential variable, and the one the circulating lists omit entirely. Karnataka and Gujarat move money before grant. Telangana, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and the central MSME route do not.

4. The claim window. Six months in Telangana from obtaining the patent, one year in Odisha from registration, twelve months in Gujarat from publication. These are hard deadlines with no equity in them.

5. Budget availability. Read the fine print on the Telangana and Karnataka pages. Sanction decisions are placed before a startup council or committee “keeping in view the available budget for the year”, and that decision is stated to be final. Eligibility is a necessary condition, not a sufficient one.

The clock you did not know was running

Here is what the timeline looks like in practice for a small Indian filing, assuming everything goes well.

Two things fall out of that table.

The money that helps most arrives last. The FER response is where the professional work concentrates, and only Kerala’s scheme is explicitly built to release funds at that point.

And the deadline you are most likely to miss is the one attached to good news. Gujarat’s window opens at publication, roughly eighteen months after filing, when nothing dramatic has happened and nobody is watching the file. Twelve months later it closes. A ₹25 lakh ceiling is worth precisely nothing if the claim goes in late.

You cannot fund the same filing twice

Every scheme here contains some version of an anti-duplication rule, and they are enforced through the documents.

The central MSME reimbursement cannot be claimed where the same IP asset has been funded under any other central or state government scheme. SIPP carried a comparable restriction on using another government scheme to pay the facilitator. State schemes require original invoices, receipts and bank statements evidencing payment, which is exactly the evidence that makes a second claim on the same invoice detectable.

What you can generally do is stack different kinds of benefit on one filing: pay the reduced statutory fee under the First Schedule, and separately claim reimbursement of the professional fee from a state scheme. What you cannot do is submit the same attorney invoice to two governments.

Kerala’s practice is instructive here. Where a patent has already been granted, the Kerala Startup Mission forwards the proposal to the MSME route rather than paying it twice. The schemes are designed to hand off, not to overlap.

What none of this money covers

Renewal fees. No scheme in this guide covers them, and they run for twenty years, rising steeply after year twelve. This is the cost that actually kills granted patents in India — the full schedule is set out in our guide to patent renewal fees in India.

Anything about the merits. A reimbursement scheme does not make an invention novel. Your application is examined under the same Sections 2(1)(j), 3 and 10 as everyone else’s.

Appeals against a refusal. Kerala excludes them expressly. Assume the rest do too unless told otherwise.

Your own time. Invention disclosure meetings, inventor declarations, employer assignments and internal approvals are unpriced and unreimbursed, and on institutional filings they are the real bottleneck.

Common mistakes

Treating a reimbursement as a budget. You must be able to fund the filing without the scheme. If the ₹2 lakh is what makes the patent affordable, the patent is not affordable.

Getting recognised after filing. Most gates are tested at the filing date. Register with the state cell, obtain Udyam or DPIIT recognition, and confirm incubation status before the application goes in.

Filing in an individual’s name and claiming as a company. The scheme almost always pays the entity that holds the registration. Applicant name on Form 1 and claimant name on the scheme form must match, and fixing this later means an assignment, which can trigger a fee differential under Rule 7(3).

Assuming a published page is a current page. Telangana’s and Gujarat’s live government pages both carry operative periods that have expired. Always ask for the Government Order or Resolution number and date.

Losing the invoices. Every scheme requires original bills, receipts and proof of payment. A firm that does not issue a proper tax invoice separating government fees from professional fees will cost you the claim.

When the subsidy should not decide anything

A patent filed to capture a reimbursement is usually a bad patent.

If the invention is thin, a state cheque three years from now does not fix that. You will have spent your own money, disclosed the invention through publication at eighteen months, and received either a refusal or a granted patent so narrow that a competitor engineers around it in an afternoon. The reimbursement, if it comes, will be smaller than what you spent.

There are perfectly honest outcomes that are not “file a patent”. Sometimes the right answer is to run a prior art search and stop. Sometimes the protection you actually need is a design registration, because what your customers copy is the shape of the product rather than how it works. Sometimes the invention should stay a trade secret. And sometimes the right answer is to file, because the invention is genuinely new and the market is worth defending, in which case the reimbursement is a welcome recovery rather than the reason.

Decide on the invention. Treat the scheme as a rebate on a decision you would have made anyway.

How MYCrave can help

Most of the friction in these schemes is documentary, and it is created at filing rather than at claim time.

MYCrave Consultancy & Services can confirm which applicant category you fall in before the application goes in, run the prior art position so the money is going into something worth protecting, and invoice government fees and professional fees as separate lines so a scheme officer can read the claim without querying it. Our COO, Pooja Menon, is a Registered Patent Agent (No. 5509), and patent registration and prosecution is run by someone licensed to practise before the Patent Office. Across patents, trademarks, copyrights and designs the firm has handled 22,000+ IPR filings, and 70+ institutional IP Cells means we have seen how multi-inventor and institutional claims get assembled.

What we do not do is tell you a reimbursement is certain. Every scheme in this guide reserves sanction to a committee, and several tie it to available budget.

Conclusion

The state money is real. Gujarat’s ceiling is genuinely large and its eligibility genuinely broad. Karnataka releases funds at filing. Kerala funds the prosecution stage that everyone else ignores.

But every one of these schemes is a reimbursement, and most of them are triggered by a grant that is years away. The practical question is not “which state pays the most”. It is: can you fund this filing yourself, do you clear the eligibility gate today rather than next quarter, and have you diarised the claim window that opens when the application publishes?

Answer those three and the subsidy becomes what it should be — a recovery on a filing that was worth making.

Frequently asked questions

About this guide

Written and reviewed byPooja Menon Registered Patent Agent (Reg. No. 5509)

JurisdictionIndia

Last reviewed27 August 2026

Sources

• Startup Karnataka incentives page (startup.karnataka.gov.in/incentives)
• Startup Telangana funding and incentives page and intellectual property page (startup.telangana.gov.in), including the reference to G.O. No. 10 dated 25 July 2017
• Maharashtra State Innovative Startup Policy as published on startupindia.gov.in
• Madhya Pradesh Startup Policy and Implementation Scheme 2022 and the Startup MP support page (startup.mp.gov.in)
• Odisha MSME Development Policy 2022 and the Operational Guidelines for subsidy on the cost of Patent Registration in India or abroad dated 26 September 2025; Startup Odisha intellectual property facilitation page
• Uttar Pradesh Startup Policy 2020 (First Amendment 2022) and the StartinUP patent support page
• Scheme of Assistance for Patent Registration published by the Gujarat Industries Commissionerate (ic.gujarat.gov.in) and the Aatmanirbhar Gujarat Scheme for Assistance to MSMEs, operative 5 October 2022 to 4 October 2027
• Kerala Startup Mission Patent Support Scheme
• IPR component of the MSME Innovative Scheme (innovative.msme.gov.in)
• Scheme for Facilitating Start-Ups Intellectual Property Protection (SIPP) as published by CGPDTM
• The First Schedule to the Patents Rules, 2003

Every rupee figure in this guide is a scheme ceiling or a government fee, as published by the administering authority on the review date. Ceilings are maximums, not entitlements, and several schemes tie sanction to available budget. State schemes change with each policy cycle — confirm the operative Government Order with the administering office before relying on any figure here.

General information, not legal advice. This guide cannot account for the facts of your matter, and reading it does not create a professional relationship between you and MYCrave. Nothing here is a guarantee of grant, of eligibility, or of sanction under any scheme. Corrections: write to info@mycrave.co.in — factual corrections are prioritised, noted on the page, and the review date updated.

Keep reading