A distinct lane for start-ups
The Patent Office’s statistics are reported by applicant category natural persons, start-ups, small entities, educational institutions, and others and start-ups have been a recognised category for several years. Two features of that status matter most in practice: the fee scale and the examination timeline. Recognised start-ups are entitled to the concessional (lower) scale of official fees, and they were among the first classes of applicant eligible for expedited examination.
The point of both features is the same: to lower the cost and shorten the time of securing patent rights for applicants who are, by definition, early-stage and capital-constrained. For a hardware or deep-tech venture, the ability to move an application towards grant on a compressed timeline can be material to how the underlying innovation is protected and how the business is perceived by counterparties.
Concessional fees lower the cost of entry; expedited examination lowers the time to a decision. Together they define the start-up route through the Patent Office.
The fast lane, in numbers
The expedited route is where the timeline advantage is concentrated. Introduced initially for start-ups and certain PCT-linked applicants, and expanded from September 2019 to additional categories, it has drawn steadily rising use. According to the Annual Report 2024-25, total requests for expedited examination rose as follows:
| Year | Expedited requests filed |
| 2020-21 | 1,566 |
| 2021-22 | 2,513 |
| 2022-23 | 3,570 |
| 2023-24 | 5,130 |
| 2024-25 | 7,154 |
The Office states that, for expedited applications, grant or final disposal is achieved in the majority of cases within an average of about one year from the request — against the several years the normal route can take. For an early-stage company, that difference is the practical substance of the start-up route.
Concessional fees and a caution on figures
On cost, recognised start-ups (like small entities, natural persons and educational institutions) file on the concessional fee scale rather than the higher scale applicable to large entities, and the Rules also provide, in defined circumstances, for refund of a portion of the examination fee. The specific fee amounts and any percentage concessions are set out in the official fee schedule under the Patents Rules and are periodically revised; because precise figures should be taken from the current official schedule rather than from secondary summaries, they are not reproduced here. What the framework establishes clearly is a two-tier cost structure that favours the categories into which most start-ups fall.
Read together, the fee concessions and the expedited route make the Indian patent system materially more navigable for early-stage innovators than the headline timelines for the ordinary route would suggest — a structural feature of the system rather than a temporary incentive.
Source for figures: CGPDTM Annual Report 2024-25 (Office of the Controller General of Patents, Designs, Trade Marks and Geographical Indications).
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