Section 22 of the Patents Act, 1970
Acceptance of complete specification
An omitted provision that once required the Controller to formally accept a complete specification before a patent could move towards sealing.
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.
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
Under the original 1970 scheme, an application did not go straight from examination to grant. There was an intermediate step called acceptance. After the examiner reported and any objections were dealt with, the Controller formally accepted the complete specification. Acceptance was the official signal that the application had cleared examination, and it started the events that followed: advertisement of the acceptance, the opening of the opposition window, and eventually the sealing of the patent.
This provision no longer forms part of the working law. It was removed during the round of amendments that modernised Indian patent procedure and aligned it with India's obligations under the TRIPS Agreement in the early 2000s. Acceptance was replaced by a cleaner sequence: an application is published, examination happens only when it is requested, the public can object before grant and within a year after grant, and the Controller then grants the patent. A reader looking for the current stages should follow the publication, request for examination, opposition and grant provisions instead of looking for acceptance anywhere in the process.
Why this section matters
Anyone reading older Indian patent files, judgments or textbooks that refer to the date of acceptance of a complete specification.
Only historically, and when interpreting documents and rights that arose under the pre-amendment procedure.
Nothing today. It formerly created the step at which a complete specification was officially accepted.
Confusion when reading older records, where dates of acceptance were treated as important milestones that have no equivalent in current practice.
How it works in practice
An old file with a date nobody recognises
A paralegal at a Chennai firm was asked to build a chronology from a 1990s patent file belonging to a long-established engineering company. The file listed a date of application, a date of acceptance and a date of sealing. She searched the current Act for acceptance and found the section marked as omitted, which made her think the file was defective. It was not. The file simply predated the change in procedure. Under the old scheme the Controller accepted the complete specification, the acceptance was advertised, and only after the opposition period did the patent get sealed. In a file opened today the same chronology reads differently: date of filing, date of publication, date of request for examination, date of the first examination report, and date of grant. Once she mapped the old milestones onto the new ones, the chronology made sense and the term calculation came out correctly.
Simplified illustration only. Actual legal outcomes depend on the facts.
Key points to remember
- Acceptance was a formal step under the original scheme, marking that a complete specification had cleared examination.
- The provision has been omitted and no longer forms part of Indian patent procedure.
- Publication, request for examination, opposition and grant now perform the work that acceptance and its consequences once did.
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
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 omitted, together with the neighbouring provisions on acceptance. The Act no longer has a separate acceptance stage; an application is published, examined on request, and then granted or refused.
Compiled from official consolidated texts and Gazette notifications. See the site-wide change log.
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 22
Is there still an acceptance stage in Indian patent practice?
No. The acceptance step was removed when Indian patent procedure was restructured in the early 2000s to meet India's TRIPS obligations. Today an application is published, examined on request, open to pre-grant representations, and then either granted or refused. If a document refers to the acceptance of a complete specification, it is almost certainly describing practice under the older scheme.
How do I read an old file that mentions a date of acceptance?
Treat acceptance as the historical equivalent of clearing examination. Under the old scheme it was followed by advertisement of the acceptance, an opposition period, and sealing of the patent. Mapping those milestones onto the modern sequence of publication, examination, opposition and grant usually makes the chronology clear. Term calculations for old patents run from the date of the patent, so check that date rather than the acceptance date.
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