Rule 47 of the Patents Rules, 2003
Omitted provision
An omitted rule whose removal reflects a settled point: repealing a transitional scheme does not disturb what lawfully happened while it existed.
Official legal text
An omitted provision keeps its slot in the statute. The alternative, renumbering everything that follows, would make older judgments and office records hard to follow. The number therefore survives as a marker, and readers tracing historical documents still need an explanation of what once stood here.
Nothing here replaces the statute. The official wording of the provision, together with any Gazette notification that applies to it, governs. This page only explains that material in ordinary language.
What this rule requires, step by step
When a whole chapter is omitted, a fair question is what happens to acts already done under it. The general principle in Indian law is that repeal or omission looks forward. Rights that were properly granted while the provisions were alive, and things lawfully done under them, are not retrospectively undone merely because the provisions have gone. What ends is the ability to create anything new under them, and in the case of a right that was itself time limited, the practical effect is that the last of them simply ran out.
So the correct way to describe the position today is not that exclusive marketing rights were cancelled, but that the scheme was closed. Nobody can apply for one, nobody holds one, and no obligation arises under the omitted rules. Anyone examining conduct from the transitional period, for example in an old contract that referred to such a right, should read the contract against the law in force at the time and then check whether anything in it still has effect under the current regime. Almost always the answer is that only a granted patent, if there is one, still matters.
Why this rule matters
Lawyers interpreting old agreements or disputes that referred to the abolished scheme.
When an old contract, licence or pleading mentions a right created under the omitted chapter.
Nothing prospectively. Historic acts done under the chapter are read against the law as it then stood.
Arguing about an obligation that no longer has any legal foundation, or assuming an old right was retrospectively wiped out.
How it works in practice
A clause left behind in a distribution agreement
A Jaipur distributor and a foreign supplier were in dispute about a 2003 distribution agreement that was still being renewed each year. One clause promised the distributor an extra margin for as long as the supplier held an exclusive right to sell the product in India under the transitional scheme. The supplier said the clause had lapsed. The distributor said it had been unlawfully cancelled. The arbitrator took a simple approach. The clause was valid when written and had operated while the right existed. The right, being time limited, had ended by its own terms, and the scheme itself had been closed in 2005. Nothing had been cancelled and nothing survived. The margin clause had simply run out of subject matter, and the parties' current relationship stood on the ordinary terms of the agreement. The dispute was decided in an afternoon on that reasoning.
Simplified illustration only. Actual legal outcomes depend on the facts.
Key points to remember
- Omitting a provision generally operates for the future and does not undo what was lawfully done earlier.
- No new right can be created under the omitted chapter, and none survives in force.
- Old contracts referring to the scheme should be read against the law in force when they were made.
Connected provisions
Rules and sections are cited differently and amended differently. On a rule page the connected sections are therefore kept in a separate list, so that a reader quoting this material can attribute each requirement to the correct instrument.
Forms, deadlines and fees
Any official fee connected with this provision is fixed by the First Schedule to the Patents Rules, not by the provision itself. The amount depends on who the applicant is and on whether the filing is made online or on paper, so no figures are reproduced here. 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 Rule 47
Were exclusive marketing rights cancelled when the law changed?
They were not cancelled in the sense of being struck down. The scheme was closed, so no new right could be granted, and each right that existed came to an end on its own terms, since it lasted at most five years and ended earlier if the underlying application was granted or rejected. Acts lawfully done while the scheme operated are judged against the law that applied at the time, which is the ordinary approach to omitted provisions.
What should I do with an old contract that mentions this scheme?
Read the clause against the law as it stood when the contract was made, then check whether the subject matter still exists. Usually it does not, because no right under the scheme survives. The next question is whether a patent was granted on the related application, because that patent, if in force, is the only thing that can still create obligations. Getting a written opinion on that point is far cheaper than arguing about an expired right.
An old agreement refers to a right that no longer exists?
MYCrave Consultancy reviews legacy Indian IP clauses and tells you what still has effect.
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