Section 47 of the Patents Act, 1970
Grant of patents to be subject to certain conditions
Section 47 builds permanent limits into every Indian patent, allowing Government use of the invention and use by anyone for experiment or research.
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.
This is a simplified explanation. Where it differs from the official text of the provision, or from an applicable Gazette notification, the official text and the notification prevail.
What this section says, in plain language
Every patent granted in India comes with conditions attached to it. Section 47 sets out those conditions. The exclusive rights a patentee gets under Section 48 are strong, but they do not stop a small set of uses that Parliament decided should stay open. Because these limits are written into the grant itself, a patentee cannot remove them by contract, by a licence term, or by a notice on the product.
The first set of conditions covers the Government. A patented machine, apparatus or other article, or an article made by a patented process, may be imported or made by the Government, or by someone acting on its behalf, for the Government's own use. A patented process may likewise be used by or for the Government for its own use. The phrase 'own use' is the limit here. It covers the Government's own working purposes; it does not cover buying up patented goods to trade in them commercially.
The second condition is the research and teaching exemption. Any person may make or use a patented invention merely for the purpose of experiment or research, and that expressly includes using it to teach students. This is what lets a university laboratory buy a patented instrument and take it apart, run comparison trials, or build a working copy in order to study how it behaves. The exemption protects work done on the invention. It does not protect commercial manufacture with a research label pasted on top.
The third condition is about medicines. A patented medicine or drug may be imported by the Government for its own use, or for distribution in any dispensary, hospital or other medical institution run by or on behalf of the Government, or in any other institution the Central Government notifies in the Official Gazette. This keeps a supply route open for public health facilities even while the patent is in force.
Section 47 sits alongside, but is different from, two other mechanisms. Chapter XVII (Sections 99 to 103) deals with the Government using an invention for its purposes with compensation to the patentee. Chapter XVI deals with compulsory licences. Section 47 is narrower and automatic: no application, no order, no licence. For that reason courts read it strictly, and a business that relies on it for anything resembling commercial supply is taking a real risk.
Why this section matters
Patentees, Government departments and public sector undertakings, government hospitals and dispensaries, university and institutional researchers, and teachers.
After a patent is granted, whenever someone wants to use the invention without asking the patentee for a licence.
A standing limitation on the patent monopoly, and a matching freedom for the Government and for genuine researchers and teachers.
A patentee may spend money on a case over activity that was never infringing, and a company may wrongly assume its commercial trials count as research and end up facing an infringement suit.
How it works in practice
A patented sensor in a college laboratory
Vayu Sensors Pvt Ltd, a Pune company, holds an Indian patent on a low-cost air quality sensor. Professor Meera Iyer at a Warangal engineering college buys two units, opens them up, and builds three working copies in her laboratory so her final-year students can measure how sensor readings drift in monsoon humidity. She publishes the results. Section 47 covers this: the copies were made merely for experiment and research, including instruction of pupils, so Vayu Sensors cannot treat it as infringement. A year later the same college's incubator proposes to build four hundred copies and supply them to a municipal corporation under a paid contract. That is production and sale, not research, and the exemption does not stretch to it; the incubator would need a licence. Separately, a State pollution board deciding to import a batch of the patented sensors purely for its own monitoring stations is looking at the Government use condition, which is a different limb of the same section.
Simplified illustration only. Actual legal outcomes depend on the facts.
Key points to remember
- The limits in Section 47 attach automatically to every granted Indian patent.
- The Government may make, import or use the patented invention for its own use.
- Anyone may make or use the invention merely for experiment or research, including teaching students.
- Patented medicines may be imported by the Government for supply through government or notified medical institutions.
- A patentee cannot contract out of these conditions or waive them in a licence.
- Section 47 is not the same as Government use with compensation under Chapter XVII, or a compulsory licence.
Common mistakes and misunderstandings
- Assuming the research exemption covers making commercial quantities. Once the activity is supply for money rather than study of the invention, the exemption stops.
- Reading 'Government use' as covering any project that has some government funding. The condition is about use by or for the Government for its own purposes, not about who paid for the work.
- Believing a patentee can switch off Section 47 by writing a restriction into a sale contract or a product label.
- Confusing the medicine condition with a general right of hospitals to buy patented drugs cheaply; it is about import by the Government for its own use or for notified institutions.
Connected provisions
- ActSection 48Rights of patentees
- ActSection 49Patent rights not infringed when used on foreign vessels, etc., temporarily or accidentally in India
- ActSection 99Meaning of use of invention for purposes of Government
- ActSection 100Power of Central Government to use inventions for purposes of Government
- ActSection 107Defences, etc., in suits for infringement
You will find the related rules grouped below rather than inside the explanation. The separation is deliberate. The Act and the Rules are distinct legal instruments, and mixing them can lead a reader to attribute a procedural requirement to the statute itself.
Forms, deadlines and fees
Fees are prescribed in the First Schedule to the Patents Rules. Because the Schedule is revised from time to time, and charges different amounts to different categories of applicant and for physical as against electronic filing, this page describes the fee without stating a figure. 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 47
Can a research institute use a patented invention in India without a licence?
Yes, if the use is merely for experiment or research, or for teaching students. Section 47 allows a person to make or use the patented invention for those purposes. That covers studying how it works, testing it against alternatives, and demonstrating it in a classroom or laboratory. It does not cover manufacturing the invention for sale, supplying it under a commercial contract, or using it as ordinary equipment in paid service work. If the institute later wants to commercialise anything built on the study, it should approach the patentee for a licence.
Does Section 47 mean the Government can use my patent for free?
Section 47 allows the Government to make, import or use the patented invention for its own use, without a separate licence. It is a limit on what your patent can stop. Where the Government uses a patented invention for its purposes on a larger footing, Sections 99 to 102 deal with the arrangement and with compensation to you. Section 47 by itself does not create a payment mechanism, so patentees who supply to government buyers usually negotiate the commercial terms rather than rely on the patent to block the use.
Is clinical or regulatory testing covered by Section 47?
Section 47 covers use merely for experiment or research. Work done to generate data about the invention itself can fall within that. There is a separate provision, Section 107A, that deals with acts done to develop and submit information required under a law regulating the manufacture or sale of products. Which provision applies depends on exactly what is being done and why. Because the line matters commercially, generic manufacturers and research organisations usually take specific advice before starting the work.
Can I import a patented medicine into India because Section 47 allows it?
Not as a private business. The condition is limited to import by the Government for its own use, or for distribution in a dispensary, hospital or other medical institution run by or on behalf of the Government, or in an institution the Central Government notifies in the Official Gazette. A private importer, distributor or pharmacy is outside that condition and would be infringing. Parallel import and other issues are dealt with elsewhere in the Act, and each situation needs to be checked separately.
Unsure whether a use falls inside Section 47?
MYCrave Consultancy helps patentees and research institutions work out where the Government use and research exemptions begin and end.
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