Section 117C of the Patents Act, 1970
Bar of jurisdiction of courts, etc.
Section 117C stopped civil courts from deciding matters reserved for the patent Appellate Board and was removed in 2021.
Official legal text
This provision has been omitted, but its number remains. Statutes here are amended by omission rather than renumbering, which keeps every other number stable. Anyone reading a file, an order or a commentary from the period when it applied will meet this number and need to know what it covered.
Nothing here replaces the statute. The official wording of the provision, together with any Gazette notification that applies to it, governs. This page only explains that material in ordinary language.
What this section says, in plain language
When Parliament creates a specialist tribunal, it usually also stops ordinary courts from hearing the same questions, so that two forums do not decide the same issue differently. Section 117C did that job for patents. While the Appellate Board existed, no court could entertain a suit or proceeding on a matter that the Board was empowered to decide, and no court could grant an injunction in such a matter. In practice this meant that once revocation and rectification of the Register went to the Board, a defendant in an infringement suit who wanted the patent revoked had to go to the Board, while the suit itself continued in the civil court.
The provision was omitted by the Tribunals Reforms Act, 2021 along with the rest of the Appellate Board scheme. With the bar gone, High Courts again hear revocation petitions under Section 64 and rectification applications under Section 71, and they also hear infringement suits within their jurisdiction. This has simplified one long-standing problem: a validity challenge and an infringement claim about the same patent can now be dealt with by the same High Court, which reduces the risk of conflicting findings. Jurisdiction over infringement suits themselves is still governed by Section 104.
Why this section matters
Parties in patent infringement litigation, especially defendants who want to attack the validity of the patent they are accused of infringing.
When choosing where to raise a validity challenge alongside or against an infringement claim.
No current bar. Forum questions today are answered by Sections 64, 71 and 104 and by ordinary rules of jurisdiction.
You may rely on outdated commentary that says a civil court cannot touch validity, and split a case that could be heard together.
How it works in practice
One patent, two fights, now one court
Nilgiri Pumps Pvt Ltd is sued for infringing a patent on a low-head irrigation pump. Its engineers believe the patent should never have been granted because a Coimbatore workshop was selling the same design years earlier. Under the older scheme, the company would have defended the suit in the civil court while filing a separate revocation petition before the Appellate Board, because Section 117C kept validity questions away from the court once the Board was in place. That split often meant two sets of lawyers, two timetables and a risk that one forum would finish before the other. With Section 117C omitted and the Board abolished, Nilgiri Pumps files a counter-claim for revocation in the same High Court that is hearing the infringement suit. The court now considers the prior sale evidence and the infringement allegation together. If the patent is revoked, the infringement claim falls with it, and the company avoids fighting the same technical question twice.
Simplified illustration only. Actual legal outcomes depend on the facts.
Key points to remember
- Section 117C barred courts from deciding matters that the Appellate Board was empowered to decide.
- It also barred courts from granting injunctions in respect of those matters.
- The Tribunals Reforms Act, 2021 omitted the provision when the Board was abolished.
- High Courts now hear revocation, rectification and infringement matters, so validity and infringement can be decided together.
Connected provisions
A section of the Act states what the law requires. The detail of complying with it, including forms, periods and office procedure, sits in the Patents Rules, 2003. The Rules are a separate instrument and change far more often, so they are shown alongside rather than folded into the section.
Forms, deadlines and fees
We do not publish fee amounts. The First Schedule sets them, and they differ by category of applicant, such as a natural person, a startup, a small entity or another applicant, and by the mode of filing. Check the Schedule currently in force before you calculate anything. How Indian patent fees work.
Related judgments
You will not find case summaries under this heading today. Each one must pass a legal review before it appears, and that work has not been completed for this provision. If you are researching decided cases, use a law report or a court database in the meantime. How case notes are prepared.
Questions people ask about Section 117C
Can a civil court decide whether a patent is valid?
Yes, within the current scheme. Validity comes before a court in two main ways: a revocation petition filed in the High Court under Section 64, or a counter-claim for revocation raised by a defendant in an infringement suit. Where a counter-claim for revocation is filed, the suit is dealt with by the High Court. The bar in Section 117C, which had reserved these questions for the Appellate Board, no longer exists. Section 107 also allows a defendant to raise the grounds of revocation as defences in an infringement suit.
Why was a jurisdiction bar needed at all?
Because two forums deciding the same question can reach opposite conclusions about the same patent, which helps nobody. A bar of jurisdiction channels a defined class of questions to the specialist body and keeps ordinary courts out of them. The cost is fragmentation, since a party may then have to run parallel proceedings in two places about one dispute. When IPAB was abolished in 2021, Parliament removed the bar as well, and the jurisdiction returned to the High Courts, where a single bench can now hear both sides of the dispute.
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