Patent Registration in Pakistan: The Procedure, Fees and Deadlines

Section 14(1) requires every ordinary application to carry either a complete specification or a provisional one. A Convention application, one claiming priority from an earlier foreign filing, must carry a complete specification from the start.

A provisional specification fixes your filing date without the formalities of a complete one. IPO's filing guidelines say it is not examined, and that claims and drawings can follow later. The catch is section 14(2): the complete specification must be filed within twelve months of the filing date, or the application is deemed abandoned. Unlike several other deadlines in the Ordinance, section 14(2) provides for no extension.

IPO's guidelines put the filing fee at Rs 6,750 with a complete specification and Rs 2,025 with a provisional one. The gazette then prices the later complete specification on Form P-3A at Rs 4,725, and Rs 2,025 plus Rs 4,725 is exactly Rs 6,750. On that reading the provisional route costs the same in the end and only defers Rs 4,725 by up to a year. IPO does not state the sum itself, so confirm the forms and fees the Patent Office will charge on your application before you pay.

Section 11 lets the true and first inventor apply, alone or jointly, as can the inventor's assignee or successor in interest and the legal representative of a deceased inventor. A company can therefore apply as assignee. Under rule 8, if the inventor is not a party to the application the company must produce the original deed of assignment, unless Form P-1A is endorsed by the inventor in front of two witnesses. An inventor who is not an applicant is still entitled to be named.

Section 12 is the rule most employers do not expect. An invention made by an employee in the course of employment, in the employer's area of activity, belongs to the inventor unless there is a contractual obligation to the contrary, or the employer proves the invention could not have been made without the employer's facilities and equipment. Even where the employer owns it, an invention of exceptional economic value entitles the inventor to equitable remuneration.

That is the reverse of the copyright position, where section 13(c) of the Copyright Ordinance 1962 makes the employer first owner of an employee's work by default. An employment contract that deals with copyright and says nothing about inventions leaves patents with the employee, unless the employer can prove the facilities exception.

WIPO's list of PCT Contracting States, which stood at 159 when this guide was reviewed, does not include Pakistan. An international application therefore cannot enter a national phase here, and the thirty-month PCT timetable does not apply. The route in is a Convention application under section 2(c): filed in Pakistan within twelve months of the first application in a Convention country, which section 2(d) defines as a WTO member or a country declared by notification. Pakistan has also been party to the Paris Convention since 22 July 2004.

With a Convention application, section 88 requires a certified copy of the foreign specification, with the application or within three months, and a verified English translation of anything not in English. Rule 8(8) allows extensions on Form P-4 of no more than three periods of three months. Rule 5 requires every application document to be in English.

Rule 7 requires every applicant to give an address for service in Pakistan, and without one the Controller need not proceed. Section 84(2) obliges the Controller to refuse to recognise as agent anyone who neither resides nor has a place of business in Pakistan. Section 81(2) lets a registered patent agent sign and verify an application for an applicant who is absent from Pakistan. Registration as a patent agent is limited by section 80 to Pakistani citizens aged twenty-one or over with the prescribed qualifications, and section 82(2) bars companies from practising as patent agents. IPO has published an electronic register of patent agents since 1 January 2024.

Section 7 requires an invention to be new, involve an inventive step and be capable of industrial application. Section 7(2) says discoveries, scientific theories and mathematical methods, artistic and purely aesthetic creations, schemes or methods for mental acts, games or doing business, the presentation of information, and substances found in nature are not inventions. Section 7(4) bars patents for inventions contrary to public order or morality, plants and animals other than micro-organisms, diagnostic, therapeutic and surgical methods, new uses of known products or processes, and mere changes in the physical appearance of a chemical product.

On software, IPO's own material disagrees with the statute text it publishes. The consolidation of the Ordinance on IPO's site lists only "the presentation of information" in section 7(2)(d). IPO's patent introduction page lists "computer software" in the same place, and IPO's FAQ summarises the exclusions as including computer software and methods of doing business. Section 7(3) confines every exclusion to the thing "as such". IPO's documents also disagree about which amendments to the Ordinance exist, citing amendments in 2006, 2007 and 2010 that the consolidation does not show, so we have not been able to settle which text is current.

The practical position is that IPO describes software as excluded, and a claim to software as such should be expected to draw an objection. Source code and compiled programs are protected as literary works under the Copyright Ordinance 1962 without registration, and our copyright registration guide covers that route.

Under section 22, from acceptance until sealing the applicant has the same privileges as if the patent had been sealed on the date of acceptance, but cannot bring infringement proceedings until the patent is sealed. IPO puts it more bluntly: patent protection does not start until the actual grant.

Once sealed, a patent runs for twenty years from the filing date under section 31. An infringement suit is brought in the District Court under section 60, and moves to the High Court if the defendant counter-claims for revocation.