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The working statement nobody filed
Do I have to tell the Patent Office whether I am using my patent?
India requires patentees and licensees to tell the Patent Office whether a patent has been worked in India. The obligation moved from annual to once every three financial years in 2024 - which has made it much easier to forget.
What the current obligation is
The statement is furnished on Form 27, once in respect of every period of three financial years, starting from the financial year commencing immediately after the financial year in which the patent was granted, and within six months of the end of each such period. That means a 30 September deadline. A three-month extension is available on a request in Form 4.
The form itself was simplified: it asks whether the patent was worked, the reasons if not, and whether it is available for licensing - not the detailed sales values that the older form required.
Why it is worth taking seriously
Failure to furnish information required under section 146, and furnishing false information, now attract monetary penalties under the framework introduced by the Jan Vishwas Act 2023, which came into force for these provisions on 1 August 2024. Imprisonment was removed and a separate adjudication procedure was created.
There is also a strategic dimension: statements of working are public, and they feed into compulsory licence applications, where non-working in India is one of the statutory grounds.
Section 146 of the Patents Act 1970; rule 131(2) of the Patents Rules 2003 as substituted by the Patents (Amendment) Rules, 2024; penalties under section 122 as amended by the Jan Vishwas Act 2023.
The transitional mapping of grant dates to three-year blocks follows Patent Office guidance issued in 2024. Confirm the block that applies to each patent before filing.
Diarise the triennial date for every granted patent, and record working information as you go rather than reconstructing three years later.
Assuming a licensed but unmanufactured patent needs no statement. It does, and so does one that is not worked at all.
Patents granted on or before 31 March 2023 - the first statement under the new regime falls due by 30 September 2026.
List your granted Indian patents by financial year of grant. That list tells you which block each one is in.
Sources & further reading
Related
Statement of working
A statement filed on Form 27 telling the Patent Office whether a granted patent has been worked in India, and if not, why not.
Compulsory licence
A licence granted by the Controller to a third party, without the patentee's consent, on an application made after three years from grant, on grounds including that …
Working statements moved from yearly to once every three financial years - and the first deadline is close
After grant: the things that quietly kill patents
Very few Indian patents are lost to competitors. They are lost to handovers, stale addresses and obligations nobody owns.
Not sure whether this applies to your invention?
The honest answer usually needs someone to look at your actual disclosure, your timeline and the prior art. That is a conversation, not an article.
Educational guidance, not legal advice. This material is published by Ragulika IP for general education and information. It is not legal advice, it does not create a professional-client relationship, and it is not a substitute for advice on your own facts. Patentability, infringement, prosecution strategy and every other IP outcome turn on the specific facts and on the law and Patent Office practice as they stand at the time you act. Please take professional advice before making a decision, and read the underlying provision or judgment before relying on any point stated here.
Last reviewed by Ragulika IP on 2026-08-23. Indian patent law and Patent Office practice change; check the position before you rely on it.