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Real-life scenario · fictionalised
The working statement nobody filed
A company holds fourteen granted Indian patents, most granted before March 2023. When the obligation was annual, the paralegal filed working statements every year as a routine task. She left in 2024, and the task was not reassigned, partly because someone remembered that the rules had changed and the requirement was now less frequent. In August 2026 nobody is sure what is due.
What is the position?
What the current obligation is
Since the 2024 amendment, 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 - which is a 30 September deadline. A three-month extension is available on a request in Form 4.
For patents granted on or before 31 March 2023, the first block under the new regime runs to the end of FY 2025-26, making the statement due by 30 September 2026.
Why the change made compliance harder
An annual task gets built into a calendar. A triennial one falls out of it - the person who did it last time has usually moved on. And because the change reduced the burden, it was widely reported as good news and then forgotten.
Failure to furnish information required under section 146, and furnishing false information, attract monetary penalties under the framework introduced by the Jan Vishwas Act 2023, in force for these provisions since 1 August 2024, with a separate adjudication procedure.
What should have happened
- Mapped every granted patent to its financial year of grant, and from that to its three-year block.
- Assigned an owner for the triennial task when the previous owner left.
- Recorded working information as it arose, rather than reconstructing three years of it in September.
- Confirmed the transitional block for each patent against current Patent Office guidance rather than memory.
Obligations that arrive once every three years are far more dangerous than annual ones.
This scenario is a composite teaching example written by Ragulika IP. It does not describe any real client, application or matter, and any resemblance to a specific case is coincidental.
Sources & further reading
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The working statement nobody filed
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 fina…
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.
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?
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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.