Section 24A of the Patents Act, 1970
Application for grant of exclusive rights
An omitted provision that once let the holder of a mailbox drug or agrochemical application apply for exclusive marketing rights before patents were available.
Official legal text
This provision has been omitted, but its number remains. Statutes here are amended by omission rather than renumbering, which keeps every other number stable. Anyone reading a file, an order or a commentary from the period when it applied will meet this number and need to know what it covered.
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
Between 1995 and 2005 India did not yet grant product patents for medicines and agricultural chemicals. To meet its transitional obligations under the TRIPS Agreement, India accepted such applications and held them in a queue, informally called the mailbox, to be examined later. In the meantime a separate, temporary right was offered. This provision was the entry point to it: the person who had filed a mailbox application could apply to the Controller for exclusive marketing rights, usually shortened to EMR, over the article in question.
The whole of this chapter, including this provision, was removed by the Patents (Amendment) Act 2005, when India began granting product patents for pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals and the mailbox applications were taken up for examination. The transitional bridge was no longer needed, so it was dismantled. An applicant in these fields today files an ordinary patent application and follows the ordinary route of publication, request for examination, opposition and grant. EMR now appears only in histories of the period and in disputes about products marketed under an EMR before 2005.
Why this section matters
Historians of Indian pharmaceutical policy, and lawyers examining rights exercised in the 1995 to 2005 transition.
Only in relation to that transitional period; it has no application to any filing made today.
Nothing today. It formerly created the right to apply for exclusive marketing rights on a mailbox application.
Confusion about what protection actually existed for medicines in India before 2005.
How it works in practice
A queue, a bridge and a closed door
A fictional Indian formulation company, Sarayu Pharma, filed a product application for a new anti-diabetic molecule in 1999. At that time the application could not be examined, because India did not yet grant product patents for medicines. It sat in the mailbox queue. Sarayu's advisers considered applying for exclusive marketing rights, which was the only interim protection available, and began assembling the material that route required. Before the application was decided, the law changed. From 2005 India granted product patents in this field, the exclusive marketing rights chapter was removed, and the mailbox applications were queued for ordinary examination. Sarayu's application was eventually examined on the normal patentability grounds and opposed by two generic manufacturers. The EMR route it had been preparing for simply ceased to exist. Any company researching this period will find the same pattern: a temporary bridge that was taken down once the permanent road opened.
Simplified illustration only. Actual legal outcomes depend on the facts.
Key points to remember
- This provision opened the application route to exclusive marketing rights for mailbox drug and agrochemical applications.
- It belonged to a transitional chapter that operated between the mid-1990s and 2005.
- The chapter was removed by the Patents (Amendment) Act 2005, when product patents in these fields became available.
Connected provisions
The rules connected to a section are listed on their own because they are subordinate legislation. They cannot go beyond the Act, but they can be changed by notification without a new statute, so seeing them separately makes it easier to check whether the current procedure is still what you remember.
Forms, deadlines and fees
We do not publish fee amounts. The First Schedule sets them, and they differ by category of applicant, such as a natural person, a startup, a small entity or another applicant, and by the mode of filing. Check the Schedule currently in force before you calculate anything. 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 whole chapter was omitted. Exclusive marketing rights ended once product patents became available in all fields of technology.
- 1999The Patents (Amendment) Act, 1999The section was inserted as part of the transitional arrangement. An applicant holding a mailbox application for a medicine or agricultural chemical could ask for an exclusive right to sell or distribute the product in India while the application waited.
Compiled from official consolidated texts and Gazette notifications. See the site-wide change log.
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 24A
What was a mailbox application?
It was a patent application for a drug or agrochemical product filed in India during the transitional period when such product patents could not yet be granted. India accepted the applications and held them without examination, preserving their filing dates, until product patents became available. When the law changed in 2005 the queue was opened and the applications were examined under the ordinary rules, including the restrictions on patenting new forms of known substances.
Can I still apply for exclusive marketing rights in India?
No. The entire chapter dealing with exclusive marketing rights was omitted by the Patents (Amendment) Act 2005. There is no application, no form and no procedure for it. Anyone seeking protection for a pharmaceutical or agrochemical invention in India today files an ordinary patent application and follows the standard route of filing, publication, request for examination, opposition and grant.
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