A patent is only as alive as its last renewal fee. Miss the payment, miss the 18-month restoration window, and the monopoly is gone. But in M/s. Green Energy Resources, Sambalpur v. Union of India & Ors. [W.P.(C) No. 19128 of 2024], the Orissa High Court took a liberal view and let a patentee try to revive a patent even after that statutory window had closed.
A missed fee, an oblivious patentee
Section 60(1) of the Patents Act allows restoration of a patent that has ceased for non-payment of renewal fees, but only within eighteen months of the cesser, with Section 60(3) requiring a full disclosure of the circumstances. Patent 343974 — “a Novel Method for Detoxification of Spent Potlining (SPL) by Controlled Heat Treatment” — lapsed on 22 September 2021 when the renewal fee went unpaid. The patentee said the lapse was the patent agent’s negligence; it believed the patent was being maintained, discovered the lapse only in June 2024 (well past the 18 months), and found the Patent Office portal would no longer accept a restoration application. The relevant period overlapped the COVID-19 pandemic.
Diligence of the patentee, negligence of the agent
The Court leaned on a line of Delhi High Court authority — including Bry-Air (Prokon) and European Union v. Union of India — holding that an agent’s mistakes should not ordinarily strip a diligent patentee of substantive rights where there is no intention to abandon, and that writ courts may intervene in exceptional cases to preserve statutory rights. Factoring in the agent’s negligence, the absence of any intention to abandon, the pandemic’s disruption, and the Supreme Court’s COVID-19 limitation extensions, the Court allowed the writ and permitted the patentee to file a restoration application.
Why it matters
The decision is patentee-friendly, but it is not a blank cheque. Its reasoning rests on a clean fact pattern — demonstrable diligence, a negligent agent, no intent to abandon, and a pandemic overlay — and it travels through the discretionary, equity-flavoured channel of writ jurisdiction rather than rewriting Section 60’s 18-month limit. For patentees, the practical lessons are unglamorous but vital: dual-track your renewal diary, do not outsource your only reminder system, and document your diligence — because the door the Orissa High Court opened here is narrow, and swings on facts. It also adds to the growing body of post-pandemic relief recognising COVID-19 as a genuine disruptor of statutory timelines, a theme this blog has tracked in the Daewoong context.
Sources & further reading: Section 60, Patents Act; Bry-Air (Prokon) v. UoI.
Educational note: This case summary is general information, not legal advice.