Filing guides
Responding to a First Examination Report
What happens between an FER landing and a response being filed — the reporting, the instruction, the drafting, and the decisions that need a professional.
Draft — pending professional review. This piece has not yet been cleared by a named professional. Passages marked for verification contain legal specifics that must be confirmed against current law before publication.
The FER is where an India portfolio is won or lost operationally. The legal work is genuinely difficult, but the common failure is not legal — it is that the report went to the client late, the instruction came back later, and the drafting started with too little time.
Verify before publicationState the period for putting the application in order for grant, the date it runs from, and cite the provision. Confirm the current position on extensions.
The sequence
- 01FER received and an event created on the docket, with the source document attached
- 02Response deadline calculated from the rule, and internal preparation dates derived from it
- 03Report issued to the recipients named in the client playbook
- 04Reminder workflow opened on the agreed cadence
- 05Client instructions received; the reminder workflow closes
- 06Drafting — claim analysis, amendments, arguments
- 07Professional review of the substantive response
- 08Response filed, recorded as an event, reported and invoiced
What needs a professional, and what does not
Whether to argue a citation as filed or amend around it, how far a claim can be narrowed before it stops being commercially useful, whether an objection is better met by amendment or by argument, whether to keep a divisional open — these are judgement calls and they belong to a patent professional.
Calculating the response date, chasing the instruction, tracking who approved what, scheduling the drafting window and making sure the divisional decision is taken before it is foreclosed — none of that is judgement, and none of it should depend on somebody remembering.
Verify before publicationConfirm the current requirements for filing a divisional, including the latest point at which one may be filed and any conditions on subject matter.
Hearings
Verify before publicationSet out current practice on hearing notices, the period of notice given, requirements for written submissions after a hearing, and the time allowed for filing them.
This material is general information about Indian IP practice and procedure. It is not legal advice, it does not create an attorney–client relationship, and it should not be relied on for a specific matter without professional advice on the facts.