Section 157 of the Patents Act, 1970
Right of Government to sell or use forfeited articles
Section 157 allows the Government to sell or use articles forfeited under customs or excise law despite any patent covering them.
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.
Read this as a plain-language summary. If it and the official text, or a relevant Gazette notification, say different things, the official text and the notification are what count.
What this section says, in plain language
When goods are seized and forfeited under customs or excise law, the State ends up owning them. It then has to decide what to do: sell them at auction, destroy them, or put them to departmental use. Section 157 makes clear that a patent covering those goods does not stand in the way. Notwithstanding anything in the Patents Act, the Government may sell or use articles forfeited under any law relating to customs or excise as it thinks fit.
The rationale is administrative rather than doctrinal. Forfeiture happens for reasons that have nothing to do with patents, such as smuggling, mis-declaration or duty evasion. If a patentee could stop the Government disposing of forfeited goods by pointing to its patent, the enforcement machinery of an entirely different statute would be paralysed. The section keeps the two systems from colliding.
It is important to see the limits of the provision. It covers articles that have actually been forfeited under customs or excise law, and it covers the Government's own act of selling or using them. It is not a general licence to manufacture, and it does not make anyone who later buys the goods free to make more of them. A person who buys a forfeited article at a government auction acquires that article; the patentee's rights in respect of making, importing or dealing in further articles are untouched.
Patent owners should therefore not read this section as weakening border enforcement against counterfeits or infringing imports. Recording rights with customs and using the border measures available under customs law remains the practical route to stop infringing goods entering India. What Section 157 addresses is the tail end of the process, after the goods have already been forfeited by the customs or excise authorities for their own reasons.
The section sits with Section 156, which makes patents binding on the Government generally, and with Section 47, which subjects every patent to conditions allowing government use. Read together they show a deliberate balance: the State is bound by patents, but the Act carves out the specific situations where public administration must come first.
Why this section matters
Patentees whose products may be seized at the border, importers, buyers at government auctions of confiscated goods, and customs practitioners.
After goods covered by a patent have been forfeited under customs or excise law and the Government decides how to dispose of them.
A clear power in the Government to sell or use forfeited articles without infringing a patent covering them.
Patentees waste effort trying to block disposal of forfeited stock, or auction buyers wrongly assume they have acquired a right to manufacture the patented article.
How it works in practice
An auction buyer who assumed too much
A consignment of patented drip irrigation emitters was seized at a port in Gujarat for mis-declaration of value and was eventually forfeited under customs law. The Indian patentee, Saraswati Irrigation Pvt Ltd of Anand, wrote to the customs authority asking that the goods be destroyed rather than auctioned, since the emitters fell within its patent claims. Section 157 allows the Government to sell or use forfeited articles as it thinks fit, notwithstanding the Patents Act, so the auction proceeded. A trader in Surat bought the lot. He then approached a moulder to make more emitters to the same design, believing that the auction purchase had given him rights in the design. It had not. The section covers the Government's disposal of the forfeited articles; it says nothing about a purchaser's right to manufacture. When Saraswati sent a notice, the trader was in a genuinely different legal position for the goods he had bought and for the goods he wanted to make.
Simplified illustration only. Actual legal outcomes depend on the facts.
Key points to remember
- The Government may sell or use articles forfeited under customs or excise law even if a patent covers them.
- The provision overrides the Patents Act for that specific purpose.
- It applies only to articles actually forfeited under those laws.
- It does not give a buyer at auction any right to manufacture further patented articles.
- It does not affect the patentee's ability to use border enforcement to stop infringing imports in the first place.
- It reflects the same balance as Sections 47 and 156 between patent rights and public administration.
Common mistakes and misunderstandings
- Reading the section as a general exemption for the Government to make patented products. It concerns disposal of goods already forfeited.
- Assuming a patentee can dictate what happens to forfeited goods. The Act expressly leaves that to the Government.
- Believing that buying forfeited goods at a government auction transfers any patent right or licence to manufacture.
- Concluding that patents are useless at the border. Customs recordal and border measures under customs law remain available and effective.
Connected provisions
A section tells you what the law is. A rule tells you how the Patent Office runs it from day to day. The two are kept apart here so that a reader can quote the section accurately and then look up the current rule for the practical steps.
Forms, deadlines and fees
Fees are prescribed in the First Schedule to the Patents Rules. Because the Schedule is revised from time to time, and charges different amounts to different categories of applicant and for physical as against electronic filing, this page describes the fee without stating a figure. 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 157
Can the Government sell seized goods that are covered by a patent?
Yes. Section 157 says that notwithstanding anything in the Patents Act, the Government may sell or use articles forfeited under any law relating to customs or excise as it thinks fit. Forfeiture happens under a different statute and for reasons unconnected with patents, and the section prevents a patent from obstructing the disposal of goods the State has already confiscated. The patentee cannot compel the Government to destroy the goods rather than sell them by relying on its patent.
If I buy forfeited goods at auction, can I make more of them?
No. The section addresses the Government's power to sell or use the forfeited articles. It says nothing about giving a purchaser the right to manufacture further articles that fall within the patent claims. Making, using, offering for sale, selling or importing a patented product without the patentee's authority remains within Section 48. Anyone planning to reverse engineer and reproduce goods bought at a government auction should take advice on the specific patent position before spending money on tooling.
Does this weaken patent enforcement at the Indian border?
It does not. Border enforcement works under customs law, where rights holders can record their rights and seek action against infringing consignments before goods enter the market. Section 157 comes into play only after forfeiture has already occurred, and it governs what the Government may then do with the goods it holds. Patent owners concerned about infringing imports should focus on customs recordal, watch services and civil enforcement, which are the tools designed for that job.
How is this different from government use under Section 100?
Section 100 is about the Government deliberately using a patented invention for the purposes of Government, and it carries an obligation to agree terms with the patentee or have them settled by the High Court. Section 157 is narrower and quite different in character. It deals with articles that have already been forfeited under customs or excise law, and it simply allows the Government to sell or use those particular articles without a patent objection. No compensation mechanism is attached to it.
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