India’s nuclear patent regime is in the middle of a quiet but profound reset. With the Sustainable Harnessing and Advancement of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India (SHANTI) Act, 2025, the country has moved from a philosophy of complete exclusion of atomic energy inventions from the patent system to a conditional permission model that tries to separate genuine security concerns from routine civilian innovation. The question is no longer whether an invention touches nuclear energy at all, but whether it is strategically sensitive or primarily a peaceful, commercial technology.

From blanket exclusion to calibrated control

For decades, Section 4 of the Patents Act, 1970, read with Section 20 of the Atomic Energy Act, 1962, functioned as a blunt instrument. If an invention related to “atomic energy” within the broad ambit of Section 20, no patent could be granted, irrespective of whether the subject matter was a fuel cycle step, a safety sensor or a hospital imaging device. The state asserted total control, treating all atomic energy related inventions as too sensitive for private rights. This approach might have suited a young nuclear program, but it sat increasingly uneasily with a more complex energy system and an innovation driven economy.

The SHANTI Act rewrites this architecture. Section 38 now authorizes the Central Government to allow patents for inventions “for the peaceful uses of nuclear energy and radiation,” while carving out two clear exclusions. First, activities that are explicitly reserved to the state under Section 3(5), such as enrichment, reprocessing, spent fuel management and heavy water production, remain entirely off limits for private patenting. Second, inventions that the government considers sensitive or have national security implications are also excluded and are deemed to vest in the Central Government. Instead of an all or nothing bar, the law introduces a filter that is meant to catch what is strategic and let the rest pass.

The reserved core and the new perimeter

Section 3(5) of SHANTI Act is the hard core of state monopoly. It lists specific fuel cycle and backend functions that only the Central Government or its wholly owned entities may carry out. These include enrichment or isotopic separation of prescribed or radioactive substances, management of spent fuel and high-level waste and production and upgradation of heavy water. The statute also gives the government power to notify further facilities or activities as reserved in the future. Any invention that squarely falls into this bucket is outside the patent system by design and is treated as if it were made by the state itself.

Outside this core lies a much larger perimeter of technologies that interact with nuclear facilities or radiation but are not fuel cycle steps. This perimeter includes control systems, industrial monitoring, safety instrumentation, medical applications of radiation, nuclear data analytics, materials for reactor environments, small modular reactor components and many non-power applications in industry and agriculture. It is this perimeter that the amended framework aims to open to protection, subject to a sensitivity screen. In practice this means that many devices and methods that previously could not be patented in India simply because they lived in a nuclear environment may now be considered on their technical merits.

Sensitivity, screening and the new uncertainty

The central hinge is the concept of “sensitive” inventions. Section 38 requires the Controller to refer questions of sensitivity or reserved scope to the Central Government. If the government concludes that an invention is sensitive or has national security implications, a patent cannot be granted, and the invention is deemed to belong to the state. The statute, however, does not define sensitivity in concrete terms. There is no list of parameters or tests in the Act itself that an applicant can consult in advance.

That legislative choice keeps the state’s hands free in a fast-changing technological and geopolitical environment, but it also introduces a new dimension of uncertainty for applicants. Under the old regime, the answer was harsh but predictable: if it related to atomic energy in the Section 20 sense, it was out. Under the SHANTI framework, the default is more applicant friendly, yet the risk of a late-stage sensitivity determination hangs over applications that fall near the line. Until rules, office practice and early decisions flesh out how this standard is applied, the legal risk will be hard to quantify from a practitioner’s desk.

Pre disclosure duties and research freedom

A distinctive feature of the new regime is the pre disclosure duty in Section 38 (5). Anyone who has reason to believe that an invention relates to nuclear energy must inform the Central Government before disclosing it to any third party, including potential commercial partners. This requirement sits upstream of patent filing and is meant to give the state a first look at potentially sensitive work before it enters the public or commercial domain. It adds a compliance layer that does not exist in ordinary patent practice and will require careful internal processes in companies and research institutions.

Balanced against this is a deliberate opening for research. Section 9 of the SHANTI Act allows any person to carry out research, development, design and innovation related to nuclear energy and radiation for peaceful uses, except in areas reserved to the state or flagged as security sensitive. The statute stresses safety and environmental protection and allows the government to specify small quantities of prescribed substances that may be used in research without elaborate licensing. This combination of broad research freedom and controlled commercial disclosure attempts to reconcile scientific progress with security oversight.

How the Patents Act is pulled into the new orbit

Formally, the nuclear carve out in the Patents Act is not repealed in isolation. Instead, the SHANTI Act amends the Patents Act by connecting the non-patentability of atomic energy related inventions to the new framework rather than to the older Atomic Energy Act language. Practically this means that the examination of nuclear related applications now involves two stages. The application must first clarify the usual patentability hurdles under the Patents Act and Patent Rules. In addition, it must survive the SHANTI filter on reserved activities and sensitivity.

Procedurally, this will require clear protocols between the Patent Office and the Department of Atomic Energy. When the Controller suspects that claimed subject matter might touch nuclear energy, a referral to the Central Government under Section 38 (3) becomes necessary. The timing of such referrals, the effect on examination timelines and the form of feedback from the government will shape how predictable this regime feels in practice. At the moment, these details sit at the level of policy and draft guidance rather than settled practice.

A different drafting and prosecution playbook

For patent professionals, the SHANTI Act demands a shift in instincts. The older strategy of scrubbing nuclear context from specifications to sidestep Section 4 is now counterproductive. Complete and technically honest disclosure that explains the civilian and peaceful character of the invention will usually be more effective. For example, a monitoring system intended for use in both nuclear and non-nuclear industrial plants should say so, rather than pretending that only generic industrial settings exist.

At the same time, practitioners must now build in sensitivity analysis from the first invention disclosure. Internal checklists can prompt inventors to flag nuclear links early, so that pre disclosure obligations under Section 38 (5) are met where needed. Drafting can be aligned with that analysis, highlighting features that make the technology unsuitable for misuse or clearly oriented to safeguarded facilities. During prosecution, responses to office actions may need to address not only traditional prior art issues but also the peaceful and non-strategic context of the technology.

Opportunities that did not exist before

Even with its caveats, the SHANTI framework creates space for categories of patents that were largely shut out earlier.

  • Components and subsystems for small modular reactors and other advanced reactor designs, to the extent they do not perform reserved fuel cycle functions, now have a potential path to Indian protection.
  • Radiation detection, monitoring and safety systems for power plants, hospitals, industrial radiography and cargo scanning can be assessed on their technical merits instead of being automatically excluded due to the presence of radiation.
  • Medical technologies that rely on ionizing radiation, including imaging equipment and radiotherapy planning tools, become safer candidates for protection where earlier there was a risk of being swept into the atomic energy exclusion.
  • Data analytics, control software and artificial intelligence systems designed to improve safety, efficiency or maintenance in nuclear facilities can stand on their own as software assisted inventions, subject to the usual Indian approach to computer implemented inventions and the additional SHANTI filter.

For Indian industry and research institutions, these sectors represent real commercial and collaborative opportunity. Patent protection is not the only incentive that matters but it is an important signal that the state is willing to recognize proprietary effort in these areas.

Security, opacity and the trust question

The SHANTI Act tries to hold a difficult line: it opens the civilian space to patents without relaxing control over the strategic core. Section 3(5) and Section 38 together ensure that enrichment, reprocessing and other high-risk activities remain squarely under state ownership and control. Export control laws and international commitments continue to operate on top of this, so a patent grant does not convert into freedom to export or transfer technology.

At the same time, the Act enhances executive power at key points. The ability to declare additional activities reserved, to decide what is sensitive and to demand pre disclosure all sit with the Central Government. Concerns have already been expressed in public commentary about opacity and the risk that these levers could be used to shield nuclear decision making from scrutiny or to tilt liability and risk allocation in favor of operators. From an IP perspective, the absence of a clearly articulated appeal path for sensitivity determinations, and the lack of statutory timelines for such decisions, amplify those concerns.

Trust in the regime will therefore depend less on the wording of Section 38 and more on how the first wave of cases is handled. Transparent criteria, reasoned sensitivity decisions that can be scrutinized and a willingness to treat security as an exception rather than a default will be essential if innovators are to feel that the new law genuinely welcomes their participation.

A framework under construction

The SHANTI Act, 2025, does not simply tweak a clause in the Patents Act. It attempts to reframe the relationship between nuclear technology, private innovation and national security. For the first time, Indian law clearly recognizes that there is a legitimate space for private rights in nuclear related inventions, provided they are peaceful and non-strategic. It also insists that the state retains a firm grip on the truly sensitive core of the sector.

In practical terms, the new regime offers real opportunities but comes wrapped in procedural and conceptual uncertainty. Patent professionals and innovators will need to build new habits: early sensitivity assessments, careful pre disclosure compliance, fuller technical disclosure and patient navigation of referrals to the Central Government. The payoff is the possibility of meaningful protection for technologies that, until recently, could not be claimed at all in India.

The final character of India’s nuclear patent landscape will be shaped by what happens next. Rules, examination manuals, internal guidelines and the decisions taken on the first few dozen referred applications will either convert the promise of SHANTI into a functioning system or recreate an informal barrier behind a formally open door. For now, the law has opened a corridor that did not exist. How wide that corridor becomes will depend on how the state chooses to use the discretion it has kept for itself.

Author:

Abhimanyu Singh (Associate Vice President - Electronics and Engineering)

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