Section 117G of the Patents Act, 1970
Transfer of pending proceedings to Appellate Board
Section 117G moved pending patent cases from the High Courts to the Appellate Board and was removed when that Board closed.
Official legal text
Removal by omission is the standard method in Indian legislation. The provision stops having effect, yet the number stays so that the rest of the instrument is undisturbed. Older correspondence and rulings that mention this number are still read today, which is why the entry is kept and explained.
This is a simplified explanation. Where it differs from the official text of the provision, or from an applicable Gazette notification, the official text and the notification prevail.
What this section says, in plain language
Whenever jurisdiction shifts from one forum to another, someone has to deal with the cases already in the pipeline. Section 117G was that bridge. When the Appellate Board took over patent work, appeals and rectification proceedings that were still pending before the High Courts stood transferred to the Board, which then decided them from the stage they had reached. Litigants did not have to file afresh, and the time already spent was not lost.
History then repeated itself in the opposite direction. The Tribunals Reforms Act, 2021 abolished the Board and omitted Section 117G, and the same Act made its own arrangement for the cases pending before the Board: they were transferred to the High Courts, which now hear them. This is why some patent matters carry a long history, having started in a High Court, travelled to the tribunal, and returned to a High Court. For a reader today the section has no live effect, but it explains the case numbers and the procedural history that appear in older patent files.
Why this section matters
Parties whose patent matters were filed years ago and passed through more than one forum.
When tracing the history of a long-running appeal, revocation or rectification matter.
No current right. Transfers on the abolition of the tribunal were handled by the Tribunals Reforms Act, 2021.
You may assume an old matter lapsed when it was in fact transferred and is still alive on a court's board.
How it works in practice
A file that outlived two forums
In 2019 Deccan Polymers Pvt Ltd filed an appeal against the refusal of a patent application for a recycled packaging film. The matter was listed before the Appellate Board and had gone through pleadings when the Board stopped functioning in 2021. The company's new finance head, reviewing old provisions in 2026, sees no hearing notices after 2021 and assumes the appeal died with the tribunal. It did not. When the Board was abolished, its pending matters were transferred to the High Courts, so the appeal continues as a High Court proceeding with a new number. The company's counsel checks the High Court's cause list, traces the transferred matter, files a fresh vakalatnama and applies for early listing. Had nobody checked, the appeal could have been dismissed for non-prosecution when it was finally listed, and a live patent application would have been lost for a procedural reason rather than on merit.
Simplified illustration only. Actual legal outcomes depend on the facts.
Key points to remember
- Section 117G transferred pending High Court patent matters to the Appellate Board when the Board took over that work.
- Transferred matters continued from the stage they had reached, without fresh filing.
- The section was omitted by the Tribunals Reforms Act, 2021.
- That Act reversed the flow, sending matters pending before the Board back to the High Courts, where they continue today.
Connected provisions
You will find the related rules grouped below rather than inside the explanation. The separation is deliberate. The Act and the Rules are distinct legal instruments, and mixing them can lead a reader to attribute a procedural requirement to the statute itself.
Forms, deadlines and fees
This site does not carry a fee table. The First Schedule to the Patents Rules is the source, the rates vary with the applicant's category and with the mode of filing, and a figure quoted second-hand goes out of date quietly. How Indian patent fees work.
Related judgments
Court decisions shape how this provision is applied, but a summary is useful only if it is right. Every case note on this site is read by a legal reviewer before it goes live, and none has been completed for this provision so far. This section will fill in as those reviews finish. How case notes are prepared.
Questions people ask about Section 117G
What happened to cases pending before IPAB in 2021?
They were transferred to the High Courts by the Tribunals Reforms Act, 2021 and continue there from the stage they had reached. Parties usually have to complete formalities in the receiving court, such as filing a fresh authorisation for counsel, paying any court fee difference and supplying paper books in the format that court requires. If you had a matter pending before the tribunal and have heard nothing since, do not assume it lapsed. Search the relevant High Court records by party name and by the old tribunal number.
Do transfer provisions affect my rights in the case?
Generally not on the merits. A transfer provision moves the file to a new forum and keeps the proceeding alive; it does not change the grounds you can argue or the law that applies to the patent. What can change is procedure, such as the form of pleadings, the way evidence is filed and the timetable the new forum sets. Because a transferred matter may be listed at short notice after a long gap, keep your address for service current and monitor the court's records so that you are not caught unprepared.
Is an old patent matter of yours still pending somewhere?
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