Patent Law in India Before 1911
Chapter Twenty
Syllabus topic 1.4, "History of Indian Patent System"
Pages 78 to 80 of 524
In one line
India's first patent law was passed in 1856, repealed almost at once for a technicality, re-enacted in 1859, and rebuilt twice more before 1911.
In the wording a student can write in an exam: patent protection in India began with Act VI of 1856, which granted exclusive privileges for inventions; it was repealed in 1857, replaced by Act XV of 1859, supplemented by the Patterns and Designs Protection Act 1872 and the Protection of Inventions Act 1883, and consolidated by the Inventions and Designs Act 1888.
Why this history is examinable
MU prints "History of Indian Patent System" as a whole topic, and the examiner is asking for a narrative, not a list of dates. The narrative has a shape: India's patent law was written for a colony, was designed to protect British inventions in an Indian market, and was rewritten in 1970 by an independent country with the opposite priority. Chapters 200 to 240 tell that story in order.
Act VI of 1856
What it did. It was based on the British Patent Law Amendment Act 1852 and granted exclusive privileges to inventors of new manufactures for a period of fourteen years. An inventor filed a specification and, on the Governor-General's leave, obtained the privilege.
Why it was repealed. It had been enacted without the prior sanction of the British Crown, which the constitutional arrangements of the time required. It was repealed in 1857 for that reason and not because of any defect in its content.
Act XV of 1859
What it did. It re-enacted the 1856 scheme with the necessary sanction, and made three changes worth remembering. It confined the privilege to useful inventions, it extended the privilege to the inventor's assignees rather than only to the inventor, and it required a specification to be filed. The term remained fourteen years.
And it introduced priority for prior communication abroad, giving twelve months from the date of a prior communication of the invention abroad, which is the ancestor of the convention priority chapter 190 works through.
The three Acts that followed
The Patterns and Designs Protection Act 1872. It extended protection to designs, and it introduced the word "invention" into Indian legislation in a defined sense.
The Protection of Inventions Act 1883. It gave temporary protection to inventions exhibited at an exhibition, a direct response to the same problem that produced the Paris Convention in the same year. Section 31 of the present Act is the descendant of it.
The Inventions and Designs Act 1888. It consolidated the 1872 and 1883 Acts and brought Indian law closer to the British Patents, Designs and Trade Marks Act 1883.
Patent Law in India Before 1911
What the whole period had in common
Three features, and they explain the 1970 reform.
One: the law was drafted for the metropolitan economy. Every Act took its structure from the current British statute, and the assumption throughout was that the inventor whose interests mattered was a British inventor selling into India.
Two: substances were freely patentable. There was no exclusion of food or medicine, and no distinction between a product and a process. That produced the position the Ayyangar report later described, in which most Indian patents were held by foreigners and were not worked in India at all.
Three: there was no examination worth the name. Grants were made on formalities, so the register filled with patents nobody had tested, and validity was fought out only when somebody sued. The Supreme Court's remark in Biswanath Prasad Radhey Shyam v. Hindustan Metal Industries, (1979) 2 SCC 511, that the grant and sealing of a patent does not guarantee its validity, is the modern echo of that inheritance.
A worked example
A Manchester textile machinery firm holds a British patent for a ring spinning frame in 1885. What can it do in India?
Under the 1888 Act it applies for an Indian patent and, the invention being new in India and the formalities being satisfied, obtains one. It is not required to manufacture in India. It imports the frames from Manchester and sells them to Bombay mills at a price it fixes.
An Indian engineer who works out how to build the same frame locally cannot do so, because the patent covers the machine and not merely the imported article.
No compulsory licence is available to force local manufacture, and no revocation for non-working exists.
That set of facts, repeated across chemicals, drugs and machinery for eighty years, is the whole argument of the Ayyangar report, which chapter 220 works through, and it is why section 83 of the present Act says in terms that patents are not granted merely to enable a monopoly of importation.
Quick revision
Act VI of 1856. First Indian patent law, modelled on the British Act of 1852; exclusive privileges for fourteen years. Repealed in 1857 because it lacked the Crown's prior sanction.
Act XV of 1859. Re-enacted with sanction; confined to useful inventions; privileges extended to assignees; specification required; twelve months from prior communication abroad.
Patterns and Designs Protection Act 1872. Designs, and the word invention.
Protection of Inventions Act 1883. Temporary protection for exhibited inventions, the ancestor of section 31.
Inventions and Designs Act 1888. Consolidation, following the British Act of 1883.
The three inherited features: drafted for the metropolitan economy; substances freely patentable; grant on formalities with no real examination.
Test yourself
1. Why was Act VI of 1856 repealed? Because it had been enacted without the prior sanction of the Crown, which the constitutional arrangements of the time required. The repeal was for that formal reason, not because of any defect in the scheme.
Patent Law in India Before 1911
2. Name the changes Act XV of 1859 made to the 1856 scheme. It confined the privilege to useful inventions, extended it to the inventor's assignees, required a specification to be filed, and allowed twelve months from a prior communication of the invention abroad.
3. Which pre-1911 Act is the ancestor of section 31 of the present Act, and what does section 31 do? The Protection of Inventions Act 1883. Section 31 provides that a display of the invention at an industrial or other exhibition notified by the Central Government, or a description published in consequence of it, does not anticipate the invention, provided the application is made within twelve months.
The rest of this subject
These notes are cut from the University's printed syllabus. Open the syllabus itself, or the past papers, for the same subject.