Patent Revocation and Compulsory Licensing in India: Every Route, Section and Case

Explainer · Patents · Last verified October 2026

Updated for 2026 · Claw Editorial

A patent in India can be attacked in several ways, and each way sits in a different section, in front of a different forum, with a different clock. Many professionals mix them up. They file in the wrong place, or they miss the three-month appeal window. This explainer sets out the four provisions that matter most: section 64 (revocation by the High Court), section 84 (compulsory licence after three years from grant), section 85 (revocation two years after a compulsory licence), and section 117A (appeal within three months). It also gives an honest count of the compulsory licences granted so far. Last verified October 2026.

01Why the routes get confused

Revocation and compulsory licensing both reduce the power of a patent owner, but they do different things. Revocation ends the patent. A compulsory licence leaves the patent alive and lets another party use it on terms fixed by the authority.

The forum changed in 2021

Until 2021 the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB) heard revocation petitions and appeals. The Tribunals Reforms Act, 2021 abolished it. Section 64 now reads without the words “by the Appellate Board”, and section 117A now sends appeals to the High Court. Older articles and older case reports still describe the IPAB route, so they can mislead.

The clocks are different

Section 84 opens three years after grant. Section 85 opens two years after the first compulsory licence order. Section 117A gives three months for an appeal. Each period counts from a different event, so one missed date can end your options.

Revocation ends a patent. A compulsory licence keeps it alive and opens it to others. Choosing the wrong one wastes months.

02Section 64: revocation in the High Court

Section 64 of the Patents Act, 1970 lets a patent be revoked by the High Court, on a petition by any person interested or by the Central Government, or on a counter-claim in a suit for infringement.

The section lists the grounds. In plain terms, the common ones are:

• The invention was claimed earlier in India in another valid patent, or was publicly known or used before the priority date.
• The invention is obvious, or involves no inventive step.
• The subject matter is not an invention, or is not patentable under the Act.
• The specification does not describe the invention clearly or sufficiently.
• The patent was obtained by false suggestion or misrepresentation, or the patentee failed to disclose required foreign filing information.

Two practical points. First, the counter-claim route is the usual defence when you are sued for infringement. The High Court hears the validity attack together with the suit. Second, a standalone petition is a separate proceeding. In the Delhi High Court these are listed before the IP Division.

Before a patent is granted, or within a year of grant, the opposition route under section 25 is the cheaper first step. That is a Patent Office procedure and is outside this page.

03Section 84: compulsory licence after three years

Section 84 lets any person interested apply to the Controller of Patents for a compulsory licence at any time after three years from the date the patent was sealed.

The applicant must show one of three grounds:

• The reasonable requirements of the public for the invention have not been satisfied.
• The invention is not available to the public at a reasonably affordable price.
• The invention is not worked in the territory of India.

The Controller first looks for a prima facie case. An applicant is also expected to have tried to get a voluntary licence on reasonable terms and to have failed within a reasonable period. This was the exact reason one well known application failed in 2013 (see the tally below).

If the Controller grants the licence, the order fixes the terms, including the royalty. Related provisions exist for other situations, such as section 92 (national emergency or extreme urgency) and section 92A (export of medicines to countries with no manufacturing capacity). They have their own conditions and are not covered in depth here.

04Section 85: revocation two years after a compulsory licence

Section 85 is the follow-on remedy. Once a compulsory licence has been granted, the Central Government or any person interested may, after two years from the order granting the first compulsory licence, apply to the Controller to revoke the patent.

The grounds mirror section 84: the invention is still not worked in India, public requirements are still not met, or it is still not available at a reasonably affordable price. If the Controller is satisfied, the patent can be revoked.

Note the order of events. Section 85 cannot be used on its own. It needs a compulsory licence to have been granted first, and the two-year clock starts from that order. Because only one compulsory licence has been granted under section 84 so far, section 85 has had very little real use.

05Section 117A: the three-month appeal

Section 117A gives a right of appeal to the High Court against specified decisions, orders and directions of the Controller, and the appeal must be filed within three months from the date of the decision, order or direction.

After the Tribunals Reforms Act, 2021, the words “Appellate Board” in section 117A were replaced by “High Court”. So a compulsory licence order from the Controller is now challenged before the High Court, not the IPAB. In the Natco v Bayer matter the appeal first went to the IPAB, because that was the law in 2012 and 2013.

Treat the three months as a hard limit and diarise it on the day the order is received. Which Controller orders are appealable is listed in the section itself, so check that list for your order type.

06Compulsory licences granted so far

On the record we could verify, India has granted one compulsory licence under section 84: Natco Pharma v Bayer Corporation, order of 12 March 2012, for the cancer drug sorafenib.

So the 2013 BDR matter belongs in the tally as a refusal, not a grant. Anyone quoting “two compulsory licences” is wrong on the record we checked. The number of grants may change, so confirm it against the Patent Office decisions page before you rely on it.

07Which route when

• You are sued for infringement: raise a section 64 counter-claim in the same suit.
• You want the patent gone and there is no suit: a section 64 petition before the High Court.
• You want to make or sell the invention, the patent is over three years old, and the public is not served: a section 84 application, after trying for a voluntary licence.
• A compulsory licence exists and two years have passed: consider section 85.
• You lost at the Controller: section 117A, within three months.

Always read the current text of the Act and the High Court rules before filing. Official texts are on India Code and the Patent Office website.

08Tracking these matters in practice

These cases are slow and live in more than one place. A section 84 file starts at the Patent Office. A section 64 petition or counter-claim sits in a High Court, often the Delhi High Court IP Division. An appeal runs on a fixed three-month clock. If you act for a patentee or a challenger, you need hearing dates, orders and deadlines from both sides in one view.

For a comparison of the tools used for this work, see IP litigation tracking software in India.

09Where Claw fits

Claw is an all-in-one legaltech platform for Indian advocates, law firms, and corporate legal teams, combining AI-based case search, an AI legal assistant (Legal GPT), case management, and compliance automation across all Indian courts and tribunals.

A section 64 petition sits in a High Court, a section 84 application starts at the Patent Office, and a section 117A appeal runs on a three-month clock, so you need every connected matter in one view. Claw tracks cases, orders and hearings across 9,102 courts, benches and forums, with 30 crore+ judgments and results under 5 seconds, so you can follow a revocation or compulsory licence matter and read how courts have decided earlier ones by party or advocate name. Its judgments run from 1950 for the Supreme Court and from 1990 for the High Courts, and Claw does not use customer documents to train AI models.

Create a FREE Claw account to track revocation, compulsory licence and appeal matters by party or advocate name. To search the wider body of law, see case search across Indian courts.

10Sources and further reading

Check every section and date against the primary text:

• The Patents Act, 1970 (India Code): indiacode.nic.in
• Patent Office (IP India): ipindia.gov.in
• Bayer Corporation v Union of India, Bombay High Court, 15 July 2014: Indian Kanoon
• Natco v Bayer compulsory licence, 2012 (background): keionline.org
• Claw: clawlaw.in

This page is general information, not legal advice. Last verified October 2026.

11Frequently asked questions