Rule 131 of the Patents Rules, 2003
Form and manner in which statements required under section 146(2) to be furnished
Rule 131 sets out the form, timing and manner for telling the Patent Office how a granted patent is being worked in India.
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 rule requires, step by step
Section 146(2) of the Patents Act allows the Central Government to require every patentee and every licensee to state how far the patented invention has been commercially worked in India. "Worked" here means put to real commercial use, whether by manufacturing in India, by importing the product, or by licensing someone else to do it. Section 146(2) creates the duty; Rule 131 is the machinery that makes it usable, naming the form and fixing the cycle.
The statement is filed on Form 27. Every patentee must file, and so must every licensee, including an exclusive licensee, because each of them holds a slice of the commercial rights and each of them knows a different part of the working picture. Where two or more people hold a patent jointly, they may file a single joint statement. Since 2020 the rule also allows one Form 27 to cover a group of related patents, but only where the patents are genuinely connected and the working figures for them cannot sensibly be separated. Using one form for unrelated patents to save effort is not what the rule permits.
The reporting cycle has changed more than once, so the year you first learned it may not be the year that applies now. The original rule ran on calendar years. The Patents (Amendment) Rules, 2020 moved it to financial years and gave patentees six months from the end of the financial year to file. The Patents (Amendment) Rules, 2024 relaxed it further: the statement is now furnished once for every block of three financial years, with the first block starting from the financial year that begins immediately after the financial year in which the patent was granted, and it is filed within six months of the end of that three-year block. Because this has moved, always confirm the current cycle in the rule as it stands today before you diarise a date.
The 2024 amendment also made an express link to Rule 138. If the working statement is late, the patentee may ask the Controller to extend the time or condone the delay by filing a request on Form 4 with the prescribed fee. That is a safety valve, not a substitute for filing on time, and it runs out after the period allowed by Rule 138.
What goes into the form matters as much as filing it. The statement should say plainly whether the patent was worked in the period, and if it was, give the approximate value accrued in India, separating manufacture in India from importation. If it was not worked, the patentee states the reasons and the steps being taken. The Controller may publish what is received, so the form should be drafted as a public document: accurate, but written knowing that competitors and compulsory licence applicants will read it.
Why this rule matters
Every holder of a granted Indian patent, every licensee under it, and anyone assessing whether a patented invention is actually reaching the Indian market.
After grant, on a repeating cycle for the whole life of the patent, and again whenever the Controller specifically asks under Section 146(1).
A recurring, form-based reporting duty on the patent owner and licensees, and a public record of commercial working that the rest of the system relies on.
Failure to furnish the information is an offence under Section 122, and an empty or missing working record becomes evidence for anyone seeking a compulsory licence under Section 84.
How it works in practice
A Pune instrument maker maps its first reporting block
Meghna Instruments Pvt Ltd, a Pune company making low-cost water-testing probes, is granted a patent in November 2023. That falls in financial year 2023-24. Under the cycle introduced in 2024, its first reporting block is the three financial years beginning immediately afterwards: 2024-25, 2025-26 and 2026-27. The block ends on 31 March 2027, and the Form 27 statement is due within six months of that date. Meghna also licenses the probe design to a Nashik contract manufacturer. That licensee has its own duty and must file its own statement covering what it made and sold. Meghna's finance team therefore keeps a simple ledger from day one: units made in India, units imported, and value accrued in India, kept separately for each year. When the block closes, the statement writes itself. Had the company waited until the due date to reconstruct three years of sales, it would have faced a choice between guessing and filing late, and guessing on a public statutory form is the more dangerous of the two.
Simplified illustration only. Actual legal outcomes depend on the facts.
Key points to remember
- The working statement is filed on Form 27; Rule 131 is the rule that prescribes it.
- Both the patentee and every licensee, including exclusive licensees, must file separately.
- Joint patentees may file one statement together, and related patents may share a form only where their working data cannot be separated.
- Since the 2024 amendment the statement covers a block of three financial years and is due within six months of the block ending.
- A late statement can be covered by a request under Rule 138 on Form 4, within the period that rule allows.
- The Controller may publish the statement, so it is written for public reading.
- Not filing is an offence under Section 122; filing knowingly false information is treated far more seriously.
Common mistakes and misunderstandings
- Using the old annual calendar-year habit. The cycle has changed twice, and diarising the wrong date is the most common cause of a missed statement.
- Assuming that only the patentee files. A licensee who ignores the rule carries its own exposure under Section 122.
- Filing a bare "worked" or "not worked" line with no figures or reasons. A statement that says nothing useful is a weak defence if a compulsory licence is later sought.
- Clubbing unrelated patents on one form for convenience. The concession applies only to related patents whose working figures genuinely cannot be separated.
- Treating the form as confidential. It is published, and pricing or volume data placed in it becomes public.
Connected provisions
The Patents Rules supply procedure and the Patents Act supplies power. This page covers the procedure, and the sections that give the Controller or the applicant the underlying right or duty are grouped separately so you can move between the two.
Forms, deadlines and fees
Forms used under the Patents Rules are prescribed in the Second Schedule. They are revised when the Rules change, so download the current version from the Patent Office website rather than reusing a copy saved earlier.
- Form 27 is due within six months from the end of each reporting block, which since the 2024 amendment is a block of three financial years starting from the financial year after the year of grant.
- A request to extend the time or condone a delay in filing Form 27 is made on Form 4 under Rule 138, and must be made within the period that rule allows.
- Where the Controller separately calls for information under Section 146(1), the reply is due within the time stated in his notice.
Open the deadline calculator — and have every date confirmed against the current Rules before you rely on it.
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.
Amendment history
What changed in this provision, newest first. Read the footnotes in the official consolidated text for the full record.
- 2024The Patents (Amendment) Rules, 2024The statement of working must now be filed once in every period of three financial years instead of every financial year, and the Controller may condone a delay or extend the time on a request in the prescribed form.
- 2020The Patents (Amendment) Rules, 2020Filing was eased: one statement may cover related patents, joint patentees may file together, the information sought was reduced to an approximate value accrued, the time after the end of the financial year was extended, and no statement is needed for a part year.
Compiled from official consolidated texts and Gazette notifications. See the site-wide change log.
Related judgments
Case law is added slowly and deliberately. A summary is drafted, checked against the reported judgment and then reviewed before publication, because a wrong case note can mislead a reader badly. No summary for this provision has reached publication yet. How case notes are prepared.
Questions people ask about Rule 131
How often does Form 27 have to be filed now?
Following the Patents (Amendment) Rules, 2024, the statement is filed once for every block of three financial years rather than every year. The first block starts with the financial year that begins immediately after the financial year in which the patent was granted, and the statement is due within six months from the end of that block. Because this rule has been amended twice in recent years, check the current text of Rule 131 before fixing your internal reminder, and note that anything you read describing an annual calendar-year filing reflects the older position.
Does a licensee have to file its own working statement?
Yes. The duty under Section 146(2) attaches to the patentee and to every licensee, so an exclusive licensee, and ordinarily any other licensee working the invention, files its own Form 27 for what it has done. The patentee's statement does not cover the licensee, because the two hold different commercial information. Licence agreements often deal with this by requiring the licensee to share its working figures with the patentee and to confirm in writing that it has filed, so that neither side is caught out by the other's omission.
What if the patent has not been worked at all?
Then the statement says so. There is no penalty for honestly reporting that a patent has not yet been commercially worked in India. The rule expects the patentee to give the reasons and to describe the steps being taken towards working it, such as regulatory approval that is still pending, a pilot line being set up, or licensing talks in progress. A candid, reasoned nil statement is far safer than silence, because silence is itself an offence under Section 122 and tells a compulsory licence applicant under Section 84 that no effort was made.
Can the deadline for Form 27 be extended?
The 2024 amendment expressly allows a patentee or licensee to ask the Controller to extend the time or condone the delay by filing a request on Form 4 with the fee prescribed in the First Schedule, using the power in Rule 138. The Controller decides whether to allow it, and the request must be made within the outer period Rule 138 permits. Relying on this routinely is unwise: it costs a fee, it needs a reason, and once the Rule 138 window closes there is no further route.
Is your Form 27 working statement due this cycle?
MYCrave Consultancy helps patentees and licensees track the current reporting cycle and prepare working statements that are accurate without exposing more commercial data than the rule requires.
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