Supplementary provisions as to amendment of application or specification
Section 59 of the Patents Act, 1970 deals with supplementary provisions as to amendment of application or specification. No amendment of an application for a patent or a complete specification or any document relating thereto shall be made except by way of disclaimer, correction or explanation, and no amendment thereof shall be allowed, except for the purpose of incorporation of actual fact, and no amendment of a comp The Act came into force on 01 Apr 1978.
1[(1) No amendment of an application for a patent or a complete specification or any document relating thereto shall be made except by way of disclaimer, correction or explanation, and no amendment thereof shall be allowed, except for the purpose of incorporation of actual fact, and no amendment of a complete specification shall be allowed, the effect of which would be that the specification as amended would claim or describe matter not in substance disclosed or shown in the specification before the amendment, or that any claim of the specification as amended would not fall wholly within the scope of a claim of the specification before the amendment.]
2[(2) Where after the date of grant of patent any amendment of the specification or any other documents related thereto is allowed by the Controller or by 3*** the High Court, as the case may be,--
(a) the amendment shall for all purposes be deemed to form part of the specification along with other documents related thereto;
(b) the fact that the specification or any other documents related thereto has been amended shall be published as expeditiously as possible; and
(c) the right of the applicant or patentee to make amendment shall not be called in question except on the ground of fraud].
(3) In construing the specification as amended, reference may be made to the specification as originally accepted.
Section 59, The Patents Act, 1970 (Act 39 of 1970).
Cross-references
Extracted from the operative text of the enactments themselves. Every destination below exists in our corpus.
Related judgements & precedents
These are some judgments that construed this section, and hold precedence value. They hold authority on how to read, interpret and use this section.
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Steel Strips Wheels Limited v. Wheels India Limited
Court's Decision & Legal Precedent
s.2(1)(t) 'person interested' is inclusive and wider than 'person aggrieved'; a competitor engaged in the relevant field with a reasonable and tangible interest (Aloys Wobben standard) has locus to maintain a revocation petition.
On this section: True
The holding above is the ratio decidendi as extracted from the judgment by eCourts India, reproduced unaltered — it is a rendering of the court's reasoning, not a substitute for its words. Read the order itself before relying on it.
Judgments citing this section
These may be obiter dicta or a precedent, for you to study. These are the judgments where this section is quoted.
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… by the learned counsel for the appellant, the Controller has not assigned any reason for arriving at such a conclusion and despite having met the requirements of the Controller as raised in the hearing notice, the respondent has once again held that the final amendments were not in compliance with the mandate of Section 59(1) of the Patents Act. > 5.It is the contention of the appellant that no new features have been added or inserted to the claim and therefore, the matter was not hit by Section 59 of the Patents Act. However, the respondent/Controller has not assigned any reasons to uphold the objections under Section 59 of the …
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… Out of the said 31 claims, claims 1 to 25 were retained and the remaining claims were dependant claims. 4. According to the learned counsel for the appellant, the Controller has held that the Application is hit by Section 59 of the Indian Patents Act, 1970, being beyond scope. She would also submit that the Appellant had filed five affidavits of experts along with written submissions and the same were not taken on record and the Application was rejected based on the First …
Made under this section, and citing it
2 instruments name this provision in its title or its text without being made under it.
Questions about Section 59
What have the courts held on Section 59 of the Patents Act?
Steel Strips Wheels Limited v. Wheels India Limited (03 Apr 2025) is the leading judgment on this section among those set out below: True.
How do I find court cases under Section 59 of the Patents Act?
In judgments and charge sheets this section is written several ways, and each form finds a different set of orders. These search the full text of every order eCourtsIndia holds, best matches first: Patents Act 59, section 59 Patents Act, section 59 of the Patents Act. People searching for it also type patents act s 59. Each opens the full list of orders on eCourtsIndia, where it can be narrowed by court, year and outcome. 1 reported judgment on this section is set out on this page, beginning with Steel Strips Wheels Limited v. Wheels India Limited (03 Apr 2025).
What should I read with Section 59 of the Patents Act, and has it changed?
3 other provisions in this corpus refer back to it. 2 instruments name it without being made under it, most recently The Patents (Amendment) Rules, 2016 (2016), then The Patents Rules, 2003 (2003).
When did Section 59 of the Patents Act come into force?
Section 59 of the Patents Act, cited as Patents Act 59, came into force on 01 Apr 1978, having been enacted on 19 Sep 1970. It is in force as at the date shown on this page.
Other sections of this Act
Source and method. Compiled from the enactments of Parliament and of the State legislatures as published on India Code, and republished together with commentary and other original matter under section 52(1)(q)(ii) of the Copyright Act, 1957. Structured, cross-referenced and maintained by eCourtsIndia. Text as in force on 15 Oct 2026. This page is not a substitute for legal advice.