Section 152 of the Patents Act, 1970
Transmission of copies of specifications, etc., and inspection thereof
Section 152, which required the Controller to send patent documents to designated places for public inspection, has been omitted from the Act.
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This explanation is written for clarity, not for citation. The official statutory text and any Gazette notification in force on your date govern, and they prevail over anything said here.
What this section says, in plain language
Section 152 belonged to a paper era. It required the Controller to send copies of specifications, drawings, amendments, indexes and the official journal to the places the Central Government directed, so that people outside the patent office cities could inspect patent documents locally. Designated public libraries and institutions kept these sets, and an inventor in a smaller town would travel there to read what had been filed. The section also provided for those documents to be open to inspection at those places.
The provision was omitted when the Act was modernised in the reform cycle that culminated in the Patents (Amendment) Act, 2005, and readers should confirm the exact amending Act from the footnotes in the bare text. The reason for removal is easy to see. Patent documents are now published electronically. The Official Journal is issued on the Patent Office website, published applications and granted specifications can be searched and downloaded free, and the register and file wrappers are available online. Maintaining physical depositories added cost without adding access. What the reader should look at today is Section 145 for publication of the official journal, Section 153 with Rule 134 for obtaining prescribed information about a specified patent or application, Section 72 with Rule 95 for inspection of the register, and Rules 27 and 74A for inspection and supply of published documents and of documents relating to grant.
Why this section matters
Researchers, students and practitioners who encounter the section number in older textbooks, judgments or commentaries and want to know why it is blank in the current Act.
Only when reading historical material or tracing how public access to patent documents was provided before electronic publication.
Nothing today. The access it once provided now comes from the publication, journal, register and inspection provisions.
No current consequence, though relying on an old commentary that still describes this section can send a reader looking for depositories that no longer exist.
How it works in practice
Looking up a section that is no longer there
A law student at a university in Kochi was reading a 1990s commentary on Indian patent practice for a seminar paper on public access to patent information. The commentary described how copies of specifications were sent to designated libraries so that the public could inspect them locally, citing Section 152. When she opened the current bare Act she found the section marked as omitted. Her supervisor explained that the physical deposit system was overtaken by electronic publication, and pointed her to the provisions that now do the work: the official journal under Section 145, the right to seek prescribed information under Section 153, inspection of the register under Section 72, and the inspection rules for published and grant related documents. She reframed the paper around how access shifted from geography to connectivity, which turned out to be a far more interesting argument than the one she had started with.
Simplified illustration only. Actual legal outcomes depend on the facts.
Key points to remember
- The section required patent documents and the journal to be sent to designated places and made available for inspection there.
- It has been omitted from the Act as part of the modernising amendments of the 2000s, and the exact amending Act should be confirmed from the bare text footnotes.
- Electronic publication by the Patent Office replaced the physical deposit system, so access now comes from Sections 145, 153 and 72 and the inspection rules.
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
The official fee for anything described on this page is set out in the First Schedule to the Patents Rules. It is not the same for every applicant, and it is not the same for online and physical filing, which is why no amount is stated here. 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 omitted. The Controller no longer has to send printed copies of specifications and related documents to designated places for local inspection.
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 152
Why is Section 152 of the Patents Act blank?
Because it has been omitted. It once required the Controller to transmit copies of specifications, drawings, amendments, indexes and the official journal to places designated by the Central Government, and to make them available for inspection there. That physical distribution system was overtaken by electronic publication, and the section was removed during the modernising amendments of the 2000s. Public access is now provided through the official journal under Section 145, the information route in Section 153, and the inspection provisions for the register and for published documents.
Where can I inspect Indian patent documents today?
Almost everything is online. The Official Journal, published applications, granted specifications, the register and file records are available free through the Indian Patent Office website. Where a formal record is needed, Section 72 read with Rule 95 covers inspection of the register, Rule 27 covers inspection and supply of published documents, Rule 74A covers documents relating to grant, and Rule 133 covers certified copies. Section 153 with Rule 134 allows a person to request prescribed information about a specified patent or application.
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