Section 163 of the Patents Act, 1970
Amendment of Act 43 of 1958
Section 163 made a consequential change to the Trade and Merchandise Marks Act, 1958 and has since been omitted from the Patents Act.
Official legal text
When a provision is removed, the rest of the statute is not renumbered. The number stays in place, marked as omitted, so that everything after it keeps its familiar citation. That is why this number still appears, and why older files, textbooks and judgments continue to refer to it.
This explanation is written for clarity, not for citation.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
New statutes often have to adjust older ones so that the whole body of law fits together. Section 163 of the Patents Act, 1970 did that job. It amended the Trade and Merchandise Marks Act, 1958, which was then India's trade marks law, so that the two statutes would work smoothly alongside each other once patents moved out of the 1911 regime and into the new Act. Provisions of this kind are called consequential amendments. They do not create rights of their own; they simply keep other legislation consistent.
A consequential amendment finishes its work the moment it is made. Once the change was written into the 1958 Act, Section 163 had no continuing function. Its position became even clearer when the Trade and Merchandise Marks Act, 1958 was itself repealed and replaced by the Trade Marks Act, 1999. The section was later omitted from the Patents Act as part of the removal of spent provisions. Anyone researching how patents and trade marks administration were linked should read the current Trade Marks Act, 1999 and the administrative provisions of the Patents Act dealing with the Controller General and the Patent Office, rather than this omitted section.
Why this section matters
Researchers and students reading older commentaries that still discuss the section.
Only when studying how the 1970 Act was fitted into the wider intellectual property statute book.
Nothing today. It made a one-time consequential amendment to the trade marks law of the time.
No practical consequence, though relying on it in a live matter would be an error.
How it works in practice
A library copy that is out of date
Aarav Krishnan, a junior associate at a small firm in Kochi, is asked to prepare a note on how Indian patent and trade mark administration are connected. He picks up an old bound copy of the Patents Act from the office library and builds part of his note around Section 163, describing it as the link between the patent and trade mark statutes. His senior returns the draft with a single question: which trade mark law is that section amending? Aarav checks and finds it refers to the Trade and Merchandise Marks Act, 1958, a statute replaced by the Trade Marks Act, 1999. He then finds that the section itself stands omitted from the current Patents Act. He rewrites the note around the modern position, in which a common Controller General heads the offices dealing with patents, designs and trade marks, and treats Section 163 only as a historical footnote about consequential amendment.
Simplified illustration only. Actual legal outcomes depend on the facts.
Key points to remember
- Section 163 made a consequential amendment to the Trade and Merchandise Marks Act, 1958.
- It stands omitted from the Patents Act, 1970 and has no present effect.
- The 1958 trade marks statute has itself been replaced by the Trade Marks Act, 1999.
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
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
This part of the page is reserved for summaries of decided cases. They are added one at a time, after review by a person qualified to confirm that the summary matches the judgment. Nothing has been cleared for this provision so far, so there is nothing to show. How case notes are prepared.
Questions people ask about Section 163
What was Act 43 of 1958 that Section 163 referred to?
Act 43 of 1958 is the Trade and Merchandise Marks Act, 1958, the statute that governed trade marks in India before the present law. Section 163 of the Patents Act, 1970 made a consequential amendment to it so that the two enactments would sit together properly once the new patent regime began. The 1958 Act was later repealed and replaced by the Trade Marks Act, 1999, which is the law that applies to trade marks in India today, administered under the same Controller General as patents and designs.
Why do Acts contain sections that are later omitted?
Because some provisions are built for a single moment. Transitional provisions manage a change of regime, and consequential amendments adjust other statutes. Once the transition is over or the amendment has been absorbed into the other Act, the provision has no further work to do. Rather than leaving misleading text on the books, Parliament omits it, usually keeping the number in place with a note so that older judgments and commentaries citing that number can still be matched to the right part of the Act.
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