64. Revocation of patents
(1) Subject to this Act, a patent may be revoked on a petition of any interested person or the Central Government, or on a counter-claim in an infringement suit, by the High Court, on grounds including: the invention was claimed with earlier priority in another Indian patent; the patent was granted to a person not entitled to apply; it was obtained wrongfully in contravention of the petitioner’s rights; the subject matter is not an invention within this Act; the invention is not new/lacks inventive step having regard to prior public knowledge, use or publication; the invention is not useful; the complete specification does not sufficiently and fairly describe the invention or its best method; the scope of a claim is not sufficiently defined or fairly based on the specification; the patent was obtained on a false suggestion or representation; the subject is not patentable; the invention was secretly used in India before the priority date (subject to exceptions); the applicant failed to disclose, or falsely disclosed, information required under section 8; the applicant contravened a secrecy direction under section 35 or made a foreign application in contravention of section 39; leave to amend was obtained by fraud; the specification does not disclose or wrongly mentions the source/geographical origin of biological material used; or the invention was anticipated by traditional knowledge available within a local or indigenous community.
(2) For the purposes of certain novelty/inventive-step grounds, no account is taken of personal document, secret trial or secret use; and importation into India of a product made abroad by a patented process constitutes knowledge or use in India on the date of importation, except where for reasonable trial or experiment only.
(3) For the secret-use ground, no account is taken of use for reasonable trial/experiment, or use by/for Government (or a Government undertaking) or another person in consequence of the applicant’s own communication or disclosure, without his consent.
(4) A patent may also be revoked by the High Court on a Central Government petition, if satisfied the patentee has, without reasonable cause, failed to comply with a Government request to work the patented invention for Government purposes under section 99, on reasonable terms.
(5) Notice of any revocation petition shall be served on all persons appearing from the register to be proprietors of, or to have shares/interests in, the patent, and need not be served on any other person.
