When the Patent Office adopted the paperless system, its aim was to do away with any practice which promote filing of original or signed in ink or paper documents. The amendment in 2003 of the Patent Rule 6, relating to leaving and serving documents to include “by electronic transmission duly authenticated”, was supposed to be deem sufficient to meet the requirement of leaving or serving the document at the Patent Office. Later amendment to this rule in 2006 did away with submitting the original copies in paper form within one month.
Article by DPS Parmar, 1st published in The Patent Lawyer (CTC Media).