According to section 12 of the Bill, protection is given to the patent for 20 years. The duration is computed from the filing date of the application. This does not mean that the protection commences from the filing date. It only means that the starting point for calculating the duration is the filing date. The protection commences from the date of grant.
Subsection 2 provides for the payment of annual fees to maintain the application or patent, starting from the first anniversary of the filing date of the application and states the consequences of failure to pay annual fees. If an annual fee were not paid before the due date or before the expiration of the six-month period of grace, the patent application would be deemed to have been withdrawn. In the case of a patent, its lapse means that any person may now freely exploit the invention hitherto protected. It is therefore important that the public be informed as early as possible by publishing the lapse of a patent for failure to pay an annual fee.
