Section 23 of the Patents Act, 1970
Advertisement of acceptance of complete specification
An omitted provision that once required the Patent Office to advertise, in the Official Gazette, that a complete specification had been accepted.
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This explanation is written for clarity, not for citation.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
Once a complete specification had been accepted under the old scheme, the public had to be told. This provision required the acceptance to be advertised in the Official Gazette, and the application and specification then became open to public inspection. The advertisement was the trigger for the opposition period that followed, because it fixed the date from which opponents counted their time to object.
The provision has been omitted, and its function has been absorbed by the modern publication machinery. Applications are now published in the Official Journal of the Patent Office, ordinarily on the expiry of eighteen months from the priority date or the filing date, whichever is earlier, and an applicant can ask for earlier publication. The Journal is also where the grant of a patent is published, which is the event that starts the twelve-month post-grant opposition period. So the two jobs the old advertisement did, informing the public and starting the opposition clock, are now done by publication of the application and publication of the grant.
Why this section matters
Researchers and practitioners tracing when an old application first became open to the public.
Only when interpreting files and disputes from the pre-amendment period.
Nothing today. It formerly created the duty to advertise an acceptance and open the file to inspection.
Misreading historical dates, particularly when working out when an old specification first became available as prior art.
How it works in practice
Dating a specification that became public long ago
An examiner's citation in a modern opposition relied on an Indian specification from the 1980s. The opponent needed to prove exactly when that specification had become available to the public, because the priority date of the challenged claim fell close to it. Under current practice the answer would be simple: look up the publication date in the Official Journal. For a specification from that era the relevant event was different. The complete specification became open to public inspection after its acceptance was advertised in the Official Gazette. The opponent obtained a certified copy of the Gazette entry, which carried the date, and filed it as evidence. That date, not the filing date and not the sealing date, established when the document entered the public domain. The point is narrow but decisive, and it comes up whenever old Indian documents are used as prior art.
Simplified illustration only. Actual legal outcomes depend on the facts.
Key points to remember
- The provision required advertisement of the acceptance of a complete specification in the Official Gazette.
- That advertisement opened the file to public inspection and started the old opposition period.
- It has been omitted; publication of the application and publication of the grant in the Official Journal now perform those functions.
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
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.
Related judgments
Case summaries are published only after a qualified reviewer has checked the judgment, the citation and the way the holding is described. Nothing has cleared that review for this provision yet, so nothing is listed here. We would rather show no case note than one that misstates what a court decided. How case notes are prepared.
Questions people ask about Section 23
Where are Indian patent applications advertised today?
In the Official Journal of the Patent Office, which is published regularly and is available free online. Applications are ordinarily published on the expiry of eighteen months from the priority date or the filing date, whichever is earlier, and earlier publication can be requested. Grants, oppositions, restorations and other events also appear in the Journal, which is why practitioners watch it in the fields they care about.
Why does the old advertisement date still matter?
Because it is the date an old Indian specification became open to public inspection, and therefore the date it became usable as prior art. If you are relying on a pre-amendment Indian document to attack novelty, the filing date is not enough; you need to show when it actually became available to the public. A certified copy of the Gazette entry is the usual proof.
Need to date an old Indian specification?
MYCrave Consultancy traces historical publication records and proves when a document entered the public domain.
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