Section 162 of the Patents Act, 1970
Repeal of Act 2 of 1911 in so far as it relates to patents and savings
Section 162 repealed the patent parts of the 1911 Act while saving everything lawfully done under that older law.
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.
Treat this page as a guide. The provision as officially published, along with the Gazette notifications that apply to it, remains the governing text and overrides any simplification here.
What this section says, in plain language
India did not start regulating patents in 1970. The Indian Patents and Designs Act, 1911 covered both patents and designs. When the Patents Act, 1970 was brought into force, Parliament had to close the older regime without destroying rights that already existed under it. Section 162 does exactly that. It repeals the 1911 Act so far as it relates to patents, and then saves the position of everything that had already happened under the repealed portion.
The word savings has a precise meaning here. A savings clause preserves the legal effect of past acts even though the law that authorised them is gone. So patents that had been granted under the 1911 Act did not vanish. Entries already made in the register stayed valid. Proceedings that were pending continued, and orders already passed remained binding. Rights and liabilities that had accrued were not wiped out by the repeal.
The section repealed only the patent portion. The design provisions of the 1911 Act carried on for many years afterwards and were themselves replaced much later by the Designs Act, 2000. That split explains why a single 1911 statute is discussed both in patent commentaries and in design commentaries, and why the two subjects parted company in Indian law at different times.
Section 162 is rarely litigated today because no patent granted under the 1911 Act can still be in force. Its lasting importance is as a model of how Indian law handles the replacement of one intellectual property statute by another, and as the provision that explains the legal continuity of the register itself. The Register of Patents maintained today is a continuation of records that began under the older law, not a fresh book opened in 1970.
For a researcher tracing a very old Indian patent, this section is the reason the trail does not break. A grant made under the 1911 regime is treated as part of the same continuous system of records, even though the statute that created it has gone.
Why this section matters
Researchers, historians, litigators dealing with very old records, and anyone tracing the continuity of the Indian patent register.
At the point of understanding how pre-1970 rights and records survived into the modern system.
It creates legal continuity: the 1911 patent law ends, but grants, register entries, pending proceedings and accrued rights under it are preserved.
Without it, the 1970 Act could have been read as wiping out earlier grants and records, creating chaos in title and in the register.
How it works in practice
Tracing a pre-independence grant
A heritage textile mill near Ahmedabad is preparing an exhibition on its own engineering history. Its archivist, Devika Shah, finds a certificate for a patent on a loom attachment granted to a founder in the 1930s under the Indian Patents and Designs Act, 1911. She wants to know whether the document is a genuine Indian patent record even though the statute named on it no longer governs patents. The answer lies in the repeal and savings provision. The 1911 Act was repealed only so far as it related to patents, and everything validly done under it was preserved. The grant was therefore a real patent under the law of its time, and the register entry remained part of the continuous official record. What Devika cannot claim is any current monopoly. The term of that patent expired many decades ago, so the loom attachment has long been free for anyone to use. The saving preserves history and title records, not enforceable exclusivity.
Simplified illustration only. Actual legal outcomes depend on the facts.
Key points to remember
- The Indian Patents and Designs Act, 1911 was repealed only in its patent parts by this section.
- Design law continued under the 1911 Act until the Designs Act, 2000 replaced it.
- Patents granted, register entries made and proceedings begun under the old law were saved.
- Rights and liabilities that had already accrued were not destroyed by the repeal.
- Today the section mainly explains the historical continuity of the Indian patent register.
Common mistakes and misunderstandings
- Thinking the repeal cancelled patents granted before 1970. It did not; those grants were saved and simply ran out their terms under the transitional arrangements.
- Assuming the whole 1911 Act disappeared in 1970. Its design provisions survived until the Designs Act, 2000 came into force.
- Reading a saved pre-1970 grant as still enforceable. Savings protect validity and records, not the term, which expired long ago.
Connected provisions
This page explains a section of the Patents Act, 1970. The working detail that goes with it lives in the Patents Rules, 2003. The connected rules appear in their own block so that the statutory duty and the procedural steps stay clearly distinguishable when you cite either one.
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 162
What happened to patents granted under the Indian Patents and Designs Act, 1911?
They were saved. The repeal in the Patents Act, 1970 did not treat earlier grants as void. Those patents continued under transitional arrangements, their register entries remained part of the official record, and pending proceedings carried on. In practical terms every such patent has long since expired, because the maximum term available under the old law ended many decades ago. So a 1911 Act patent today is a historical document and a title record, not a right that can be enforced against anyone.
Why did the 1911 Act survive for designs but not for patents?
Because Parliament chose to modernise the two subjects separately. The Patents Act, 1970 dealt only with patents, so the repeal in it was limited to the patent portion of the 1911 statute. The design provisions were left running until they were replaced by the Designs Act, 2000. This is why older Indian intellectual property literature discusses one 1911 statute covering both fields, while modern practice treats patents and designs under two entirely different modern Acts with different offices, forms and terms.
Does this section matter for a patent application filed today?
Not directly. Nothing in a modern filing depends on the 1911 Act. The section matters when you are reading old case law, tracing an old family of rights, or explaining why the Indian register is treated as one continuous record rather than as something that began afresh in 1970. Practitioners occasionally cite it when a very old document surfaces in due diligence and someone asks whether a grant made under a repealed statute was ever legally valid.
Tracing old Indian patent records or title?
MYCrave Consultancy helps you interpret historical grants, register entries and the continuity of Indian patent records.
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