When India set up a dedicated tribunal for intellectual property disputes, one of its most deliberate decisions was where to place it – and how far its reach should extend. The Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB) was not just a legal institution; it was a geographic strategy. Headquartered in Chennai with benches spread across four other major cities, the IPAB was designed to bring IP dispute resolution closer to inventors, businesses, and legal practitioners across the country. Understanding its physical structure tells you a great deal about how India approached the challenge of making intellectual property justice accessible – and what happened when that structure was dismantled in 2021.
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Background: what was the IPAB?
The IPAB was constituted by a gazette notification of the Central Government on 15 September 2003, under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. It was established to hear appeals against decisions of the Registrar under the Trade Marks Act, 1999 and the Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999. Its jurisdiction was subsequently expanded to patent law, and from 2 April 2007, it became authorised to hear and adjudicate appeals from decisions of the Controller of Patents. All patent appeals pending before the High Courts were also transferred to the IPAB from that date.
Before the IPAB came into existence, these appellate matters were handled by the respective High Courts – a process that was neither specialised nor swift. The IPAB was designed to change that by combining legal expertise with technical knowledge in a dedicated forum.
The principal seat: Chennai
IPAB had its headquarters at Chennai, Tamil Nadu. This was its principal seat – the central administrative hub from which all policy, procedure, and administrative authority flowed. The choice of Chennai was significant. The city houses the Trade Marks Registry for the southern region and has historically been a key centre for IP filings, particularly in sectors such as pharmaceuticals, textiles, and manufacturing that are prominent across South India.
The Chennai headquarters was responsible for setting the procedural standards that all other benches followed. It also handled a substantial share of trademark and patent cases originating from the southern states, ensuring that litigants in that part of the country did not have to travel to Delhi or Mumbai to get their appeals heard.
The bench system: extending access across India
Beyond Chennai, the IPAB had sittings at Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, and Ahmedabad – four cities that together form a geographic cross-section of India’s major commercial and industrial zones. These were not permanent, fully staffed courts in the traditional sense, but circuit benches: the IPAB would sit at these locations periodically to hear cases from the relevant regions. This model kept costs manageable while substantially broadening reach.
Each bench consisted of one Judicial Member and one Technical Member. The Chairman could also discharge the functions of either a judicial or technical member in any bench, and had the authority to transfer members from one bench to another as case demands required. This flexible structure allowed the IPAB to allocate its limited human resources efficiently across five locations.
Mumbai bench
The Mumbai bench served the western region, covering Maharashtra and neighbouring states. Given Mumbai’s status as India’s financial capital and its thriving entertainment industry, the bench was well-positioned to handle a mix of trademark disputes in commercial branding and copyright-adjacent IP matters. The city’s large volume of trade and commerce made it one of the more active locations for IP appeals.
Delhi bench
The Delhi bench had particular strategic importance. As India’s capital and home to a dense concentration of legal practitioners, government bodies, and multinational corporations, Delhi naturally attracted a high volume of IP litigation. This bench handled appeals from the northern region, including appeals related to decisions of the Patent Office and Trademark Registry in Delhi.
Kolkata bench
The Kolkata bench served the eastern region. Kolkata is home to one of India’s four Patent Offices – along with Delhi, Mumbai, and Chennai – making the presence of an IPAB bench there particularly relevant for patent-related appeals arising from that office’s decisions. Appellants from states like West Bengal, Bihar, Odisha, and the northeastern states benefited from not having to travel across the country to pursue their cases.
Ahmedabad bench
The Ahmedabad bench covered Gujarat and parts of western India. Given Gujarat’s prominence in pharmaceuticals, chemicals, and textiles – industries where trademark and patent disputes are especially common – a sitting bench in Ahmedabad was practically necessary. The pharmaceutical clusters around Ahmedabad and Vadodara regularly generated IP disputes that would have been burdensome to litigate exclusively in Chennai or Mumbai.
Why geographic distribution mattered
The rationale behind this five-city structure was straightforward: the object of the IPAB was speedy disposal of appeals and rectification applications, and speedy disposal is difficult when the only forum is thousands of kilometres away from the appellant. By distributing sittings across different regions, the IPAB reduced the cost and logistical burden on smaller businesses, individual inventors, and regional enterprises who had legitimate IP grievances but limited resources.
The bench model also enabled a degree of regional specialisation over time. A bench that regularly hears pharmaceutical patent cases from Gujarat, for instance, develops familiarity with the technical and commercial context of those disputes. Similarly, a bench in Kolkata dealing with textile design disputes gains contextual depth that benefits the quality of adjudication.
Importantly, while every appeal from the decision of the Controller to the IPAB had to be made within three months from the date of the decision or direction, appellants could file at the bench most convenient to them. Jurisdiction was generally determined by factors such as the location of the appellant or the registering office of the IP in question.
Composition of the bench
Every bench of the IPAB consisted of one Judicial Member and one Technical Member. The composition was deliberate – IP cases, especially patent matters, often require both legal analysis and technical understanding of the underlying science or technology. The IPAB’s technical members brought specialised knowledge and experience in fields such as patents, trademarks, and geographical indications, sitting alongside judicial members to constitute a bench capable of handling technically complex cases.
This dual composition was considered one of the IPAB’s core strengths. In practice, however, vacancies in technical member positions frequently disrupted functioning. In the landmark case of Novartis AG v. Controller General of Patents, it was argued that due to the absence of a technical member, the IPAB was unable to decide on appeals and revocations related to patents for an extended period – a recurring problem that would eventually contribute to the board’s abolition.
Abolition and the shift to High Courts
The IPAB’s geographic network came to an abrupt end when the President of India promulgated the Tribunals Reforms (Rationalisation and Conditions of Service) Ordinance on 4 April 2021, which abolished the IPAB along with several other tribunals. The ordinance amended the Patents Act, 1970, the Trade Marks Act, 1999, the Copyright Act, 1957, and the Geographical Indications of Goods Act, 1999, effectively transferring all of the IPAB’s powers to the respective High Courts.
The stated rationale was to streamline tribunals and reduce slow delivery of justice, but the move was met with significant pushback from the IP community. Critics pointed out that the IPAB had achieved its highest-ever disposal of trademark cases in 2018, and that the majority of its decisions had been upheld by the Supreme Court. The concern was that High Courts – already overburdened and without dedicated technical members – would not be able to handle the specialised demands of IP appeals as efficiently.
The Tribunals Reforms Act, 2021, subsequently passed by Parliament and receiving Presidential assent on 13 August 2021, formally abolished the IPAB, with all future appeals against decisions of the Registrar of Trade Marks and the Controller of Patents to be filed before the appropriate High Courts. Over 3,000 pending cases were transferred to the respective High Courts.
In response, the Delhi High Court established a dedicated Intellectual Property Division (IPD), which has since shown encouraging results: within its first year, the IP Division disposed of more than 600 cases received from the IPAB and handled over 1,000 newly filed cases. There have since been discussions about establishing similar IP divisions in other High Courts across India, including those in Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras.
Legacy of the IPAB’s location model
Even though the IPAB no longer exists, its geographic model leaves behind an important lesson. The decision to operate from Chennai while extending sittings to Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, and Ahmedabad reflected a genuine attempt to make appellate IP justice accessible in a country of India’s size and diversity. The five-city model acknowledged that an IP system centred exclusively in one city would effectively exclude large sections of the country’s innovators and businesses from meaningful access to dispute resolution.
As India’s IP ecosystem continues to evolve post-IPAB, the question of geographic access has not disappeared – it has simply shifted to the High Courts. The push for IP divisions in more High Courts across the country is, in many ways, a continuation of the same principle that drove the IPAB’s bench structure: that intellectual property justice must be geographically distributed to be genuinely effective.
What do you think? Given that the IPAB specifically chose Chennai, Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, and Ahmedabad for its benches, do you think India’s current system of High Court-based IP adjudication adequately fills the geographic gap left behind? And with emerging innovation hubs like Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Pune growing rapidly in IP filings, should dedicated IP divisions be established in those High Courts as a priority?
References
- https://dipp.gov.in/about-us/statutory-bodies/intellectual-property-appellate-board
- https://www.rkdewan.com/articles/intellectual-property-appellate-board-ipab/
- https://www.ipab.gov.in/
- https://law.asia/abolishing-ipab-own-goal/
- https://www.azbpartners.com/bank/intellectual-property-appellate-board-abolished/
- https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=2e4286b6-99c4-4dc0-8dbe-6fa9a08e8781
- https://asiaiplaw.com/section/in-depth/india-post-ipab-should-other-courts-also-have-their-own-ip-division
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