In “Advocates as Patent Agents” Case- IPO says “it has been appealed”


SP Chockalingam vs. Controller of Patents

March 15, 2013 was a much-awaited date for the legal fraternity when Honourable Madras High Court pronounced a verdict on a writ Petition filed under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, seeking for issuance of a Writ of Declaration, that the amendment introduced to Section 126 of the Patents Act, 1970, by Section 67 (a) of the Patents (Amendment) Act, 2005 (Act 15 of 2005) as illegal, unconstitutional, ultra vires and void.

After several months have passed by, our Indian Patent Office (IPO) has not made a public statement as to whether it was going to appeal or implement the decision, to our knowledge.  In the interim, many advocates were curious to know the procedure to register themselves as patent agents by submitting the prescribe form.

RTI Application Filed

To break the silence, one of our advocates, S. Venkatesh, filed an RTI application No 60133 on 27/09/2013 seeking information on the same.  IPO has replied to his RTI application as below

Please refer your RTI applciation dated.26.09.2013 through online, received   by under sigend on 17.10.2013. wherein you have sought information in 9 queries. In this connectin I would like to informa you as follow,

Para 1 to 4 , which pertains to Patent office, the answer is that the decision of Hon, ble HIgh COurt , Chennai has been appealed  before court, and the decision is pending . haence not operationalised.

Mystery continues…

However, neither the petitioner in this case seem to have received any appeal papers to this effect nor are we able to see any appeal filed before the Court.

Some advocates are diligently pursuing this matter as most of them were given the same version of the story when they contacted IPO.