The Controller and the Officers

In one line

One officer, the Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks, is the Controller for this Act, and the examiners work under his authority with two strict prohibitions on them.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: section 73 of the Patents Act, 1970 provides that the Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks appointed under section 3(1) of the Trade Marks Act, 1999 shall be the Controller of Patents for the purposes of the Act, and that the Central Government may appoint as many examiners and other officers as it thinks fit, who discharge such of the Controller's functions as he authorises.

Section 73: who the Controller is

Section 73(1). The Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks appointed under section 3(1) of the Trade Marks Act, 1999 (47 of 1999) shall be the Controller of Patents for the purposes of this Act.

One officer runs three registries. The same person is the head of the patents, designs and trade marks offices, and the geographical indications registry as well. That is administratively convenient and it is the reason section 2(1)(b) defines the Controller by reference to that office.

Section 73(2). The Central Government may appoint as many examiners and other officers and with such designations as it thinks fit.

Section 73(3). Subject to the Act, those officers shall discharge, under the superintendence and directions of the Controller, such of the Controller's functions as he may from time to time by general or special order in writing authorise them to discharge.

Section 73(4). Without prejudice to sub-section (3), the Controller may, by order in writing and for reasons to be recorded, withdraw any matter pending before an officer and deal with it himself either de novo or from the stage at which it was withdrawn, or transfer it to another officer, who may proceed de novo or from the stage of transfer subject to any special directions.

Sub-section (4) matters in practice. It is the source of the power to move a contested matter from one officer to another, and the requirement of written reasons is a real safeguard against doing it arbitrarily.

Why the Act names a person and not a post created by itself

Because the office already existed. The Controller General is appointed under trade marks legislation, and the Patents Act simply borrows the office holder. The consequence is that a challenge to the appointment is a challenge under the Trade Marks Act, not under this one.

And because the functions are delegated, not shared. Section 73(3) makes every examiner's act an exercise of the Controller's own function, done under his superintendence and by his written authorisation. That is why an appeal under section 117A lies against a decision "of the Controller" even where an Assistant Controller signed it.