Section 145 of the Patents Act, 1970
Publication of official journal
Section 145 requires the Controller to publish an official journal carrying the notices and information the Act says must be made public.
Official legal text
The verbatim statutory text of this provision is reproduced from the official source and checked by our legal reviewer before it is published here. Until that check is complete for this page, read the exact wording directly from the official source linked below — it is the only version that governs.
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
Section 145 obliges the Controller to publish an official journal from time to time. That journal is the Official Journal of the Patent Office, and it is the formal channel through which the Indian patent system speaks to the public. Anything the Act requires to be published, together with any other information the Central Government directs, appears there.
The journal carries the events that matter to third parties. Applications published under Section 11A appear in it with their abstracts. Grants notified under Section 43 appear in it. So do notices of applications for restoration under Section 60, surrender under Section 63, amendments allowed under Rule 83, applications for compulsory licences, orders revoking patents, corrections of clerical errors advertised under Rule 123, and the names of persons registered as patent agents under Rule 120. In practice the journal is issued weekly and is available free on the Patent Office website.
Publication in the journal is not a formality. Several rights and deadlines are measured from it. The one year period for a pre-grant representation runs against the publication of the application. The window for filing a post-grant opposition under Section 25(2) runs from the date of publication of the grant. Objections to a proposed correction or to an application for restoration have to be filed within the period counted from the advertisement in the journal. If you are not reading the journal, you are not seeing your own deadlines.
For businesses the journal is also the least expensive competitive intelligence available in the Indian system. Watching the weekly issues for applications in your technical field tells you what competitors are filing, gives you the abstract and the applicant name, and lets you decide whether to file a pre-grant representation, design around, or start a licensing conversation while the application is still pending.
The section pairs naturally with Section 153, which lets a person ask the Controller for prescribed information about a specified patent or application, and with the register provisions in Sections 67 and 72. Between them they make the Indian patent system a public record rather than a private file.
Why this section matters
Anyone who needs to know what the Patent Office has done, including opponents, competitors, licensing teams, patent agents, researchers and the applicants themselves.
Continuously, but critically at publication, at grant, and whenever a notice or advertisement starts a period for filing an objection.
A duty on the Controller to publish official information, and the public notice from which several statutory periods are calculated.
Deadlines that run from a journal entry, such as post-grant opposition or objection to a proposed correction, pass unnoticed and the opportunity is lost.
How it works in practice
A weekly journal watch that saved a market
Nandi Agri Implements Pvt Ltd in Belagavi sells a seed drill with a metering wheel of its own design. A junior engineer was given a standing task: every Friday, download the Official Journal of the Patent Office and search the published abstracts for agricultural sowing equipment. In one issue she found a granted patent to a competitor with claims broad enough to cover the metering geometry Nandi had been using for four years. Because the grant had just been published, the company was still comfortably inside the period for filing a post-grant opposition under Section 25(2). It gathered its own dated drawings, invoices and a supplier affidavit showing prior public use, and filed a notice of opposition in Form 7 with a well evidenced case. Had nobody read the journal, the first news of the patent would have arrived with a cease and desist notice, by which time the cheaper opposition route would have closed and only a revocation petition remained.
Simplified illustration only. Actual legal outcomes depend on the facts.
Key points to remember
- The Controller must publish an official journal containing everything the Act requires to be published.
- Published applications, grants, restorations, surrenders, allowed amendments, compulsory licence applications and patent agent registrations all appear in it.
- It is issued weekly in practice and is free to download from the Patent Office website.
- Several statutory periods, including post-grant opposition, are counted from a journal publication date.
- Regularly reading the journal is the simplest competitor monitoring tool available to Indian businesses.
- It works together with the register of patents and with the right to seek information under Section 153.
Common mistakes and misunderstandings
- Believing the Patent Office will individually notify you when a competitor's patent is granted. It publishes; it does not write to you.
- Treating the journal as an archive rather than a deadline source. Missing an issue can mean missing the start of an opposition period.
- Assuming the journal contains the full specification. It carries the notice and abstract; the full documents are obtained from the file or the register.
Connected provisions
The Patents Act sets the requirement; the Patents Rules, 2003 set the procedure that carries it out. Parliament passes the Act and the Central Government makes the Rules, so the two are separate instruments. We list the connected rules here to take you from the principle to the paperwork.
Forms, deadlines and fees
- Periods that run from publication in the journal, such as the window for a post-grant opposition after publication of the grant, are counted from the journal date and not from the day you happen to see the entry.
Open the deadline calculator — and have every date confirmed against the current Rules before you rely on it.
Where a fee is payable under this provision, the figure comes from the First Schedule. Categories of applicant are charged at different rates, and electronic filing is treated differently from paper filing, so an accurate number can only come from the Schedule in force on the day you file. How Indian patent fees work.
Amendment history
What changed in this provision, newest first. Read the footnotes in the official consolidated text for the full record.
- 2005The Patents (Amendment) Act, 2005The section was replaced with the requirement to publish an official journal carrying the notifications and lists the Act and the Rules call for.
Compiled from official consolidated texts and Gazette notifications. See the site-wide change log.
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 145
What is the Official Journal of the Patent Office?
It is the periodical the Controller is required to publish under Section 145. It carries the matters the Act says must be published, including newly published applications with their abstracts, notices of grant, restorations, surrenders, allowed amendments, compulsory licence applications and the list of registered patent agents. In practice it is issued weekly and can be downloaded free from the Indian Patent Office website. It is the official public notice of what the office has done, and many statutory periods are calculated from the date an item appears in it.
How do I track competitor patent filings in India?
Read the Official Journal every week and search the published abstracts and applicant names in your technology area, and use the Patent Office search and status systems for the full documents. Publication under Section 11A generally happens after eighteen months, so the journal shows you applications long before they are granted. Spotting a filing early keeps two cheap options open: a pre-grant representation under Section 25(1), and designing around the claims before you have invested in tooling.
Does publication in the journal mean a patent has been granted?
No. The journal publishes two very different events. Publication of an application under Section 11A simply means the application has become public after eighteen months; it says nothing about whether a patent will ever issue. Publication of the grant under Section 43 is the separate later entry that confirms a patent now exists. Reading a journal entry carefully to see which event it records is essential, because pre-grant and post-grant opposition rights depend on the difference.
Is the Official Journal free to access?
Yes. The Indian Patent Office makes each issue available for download on its website at no charge, and older issues are archived there. You do not need a subscription or a commercial database to monitor Indian filings, although paid tools make searching across many issues easier. For a small business, a standing weekly task of downloading the issue and searching a handful of keywords is a realistic and almost costless way to watch a field.
Want to know what your competitors are filing in India?
MYCrave Consultancy sets up journal and publication monitoring so you see relevant filings while opposition and design-around options are still open.
You will be speaking with MYCrave Consultancy & Services, the firm that operates this platform. General questions are answered free; matter‑specific work is quoted before anything is done.