Delhi and Madras IP Division Case-Type Codes: The Complete Tracking Reference

Reference · IP Division Tracking

Updated for 2026 · Claw Editorial

If you already know a matter is pending in the Delhi or Madras High Court’s Intellectual Property Division, the fastest way to find it is not a party-name guess, it is the case-type code the registry itself filed it under. Almost nobody outside these two registries has the full Delhi list written down in one place, and Madras uses a different naming convention altogether. This page sets out both, exactly as the courts themselves use them, plus a straight comparison of what each court’s search tools can and cannot do, so you stop guessing and start filtering.

01Why case-type codes matter for IP tracking

Every case filed in an Indian High Court carries a case-type code, a short label such as C.A. or W.P.(C), that tells the registry (and anyone searching) what kind of proceeding it is. For ordinary civil or criminal matters this rarely matters to an outside searcher. For IP matters at Delhi and Madras, it matters a great deal, because both courts created dedicated Intellectual Property Divisions (IPD) with their own case-type codes layered on top of the ordinary ones.

A code narrows the search before you even start

A generic party-name search returns every matter involving that name, commercial disputes, tenancy matters, criminal appeals, all mixed together. Knowing that a matter is filed under, say, C.O.(COMM.IPD-TM) tells you immediately that it is a trademark original petition inside the IP Division, before you have read a single order. That precision is the entire point of this reference.

The codes are not published as one usable list anywhere

The Delhi High Court’s case-type dropdown holds the authoritative list, but it exists as a dropdown on a case-status form, not as a document you can read end to end. Practice directions and the 2021 Intellectual Property Rights Division Rules mention the codes piecemeal, across several notifications issued as the Division was set up and refined. Putting the complete set in one place, grouped by what each code actually is, is the point of the next section.

02The complete Delhi HC IPD case-type code list

The Delhi High Court set up its Intellectual Property Division in July 2021, consolidating the IP jurisdiction that used to sit partly with the erstwhile Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB) and partly with the court’s ordinary civil side. Every IPD matter at Delhi carries one of the case-type codes below, grouped by the kind of proceeding it is.

Appeals from a Registrar or Controller (5 codes)

These are statutory appeals against an order of the Registrar of Trade Marks, the Registrar of Copyrights, the Controller of Patents, or the Registrar of Geographical Indications, filed as a Commercial Appeal (Comm. IPD) within the Division.

• C.A.(COMM.IPD-CR): Commercial Appeal, Copyright, an appeal in a matter arising under the Copyright Act, 1957.
• C.A.(COMM.IPD-GI): Commercial Appeal, Geographical Indications, an appeal against an order of the Registrar of Geographical Indications.
• C.A.(COMM.IPD-PAT): Commercial Appeal, Patents, an appeal against an order of the Controller of Patents.
• C.A.(COMM.IPD-PV): Commercial Appeal, Plant Varieties, an appeal arising under plant variety protection.
• C.A.(COMM.IPD-TM): Commercial Appeal, Trade Marks, an appeal against an order of the Registrar of Trade Marks.

Original petitions (4 codes)

These are matters filed directly with the IPD as the court of first instance, most commonly rectification petitions aimed at a register entry itself, rather than appeals against a prior order.

• C.O.(COMM.IPD-CR): Commercial Original Petition, Copyright.
• C.O.(COMM.IPD-GI): Commercial Original Petition, Geographical Indications, typically a rectification petition against the GI register.
• C.O.(COMM.IPD-PAT): Commercial Original Petition, Patents.
• C.O.(COMM.IPD-TM): Commercial Original Petition, Trade Marks, the route most trademark rectification petitions take.

Writs (2 variants)

IPD matters that are filed, or reclassified, as writ petitions carry an IPD suffix on the ordinary writ code. Two variants of the label are in use across court records and filings, which is worth knowing if a search under one variant returns nothing.

• W.P.(C)-IPD and WP(C)(IPD): Writ Petition (Civil), Intellectual Property Division. Both forms refer to the same category; the punctuation and bracket placement differ depending on which court list or notification you are reading.

Appeals and revisions from Commercial Courts (6 codes)

Where a Commercial Court in Delhi has decided an IP-related commercial dispute, the further appeal or revision to the High Court is routed to the IPD under one of these codes, carrying the ordinary civil appeal or revision label with an IPD suffix.

• FAO-IPD: First Appeal from Order.
• FAO(OS)(IPD): First Appeal from Order, Original Side.
• RFA-IPD: Regular First Appeal.
• RFA(OS)(IPD): Regular First Appeal, Original Side.
• EFA(OS)(IPD): Extraordinary/Execution First Appeal, Original Side.
• CM(M)-IPD: Civil Miscellaneous (Main), used for a range of interlocutory and miscellaneous IPD applications.
• CRP-IPD: Civil Revision Petition.

That is 17 distinct code entries in total across the four groups above. No single published document lists all 17 together with a plain-English description; this is drawn from the case-type dropdown itself plus the notifications that introduced each category as the Division’s scope was expanded after its 2021 launch.

03Madras HC: a different naming convention

The Madras High Court set up its own Intellectual Property Division in 2023, becoming the second Indian High Court to do so after Delhi. Rather than building a family of statute-specific COMM.IPD suffixes, Madras renumbers IP matters transferred into the Division under its own IPD nomenclature, most visibly as W.P.(IPD) for writ petitions routed to the Division.

A worked example

Trademark and patent matters reassigned to the Madras IP Division commonly appear re-numbered as, for instance, W.P.(IPD) Nos. [X] and [Y] of [year], the original writ petition number replaced by an IPD-specific serial once the matter is transferred into the Division.

Act-wise search through eCourts HC Services

Madras does not expose a single case-type dropdown the way Delhi does for IPD matters. Instead, the practical route into its IP filings is the national eCourts High Court Services portal (hcservices.ecourts.gov.in), which lets you search pending and disposed matters by the specific Act under which they were filed, such as the Trade Marks Act, 1999 or the Patents Act, 1970. This surfaces IP-related filings at Madras (main seat and Madurai Bench) even though the dropdown does not label them by an IPD-specific case type the way Delhi’s does.

Neutral Citation format

Madras adopted a neutral citation system for its judgments and orders, with a unique auto-generated number stamped on every uploaded order in the format Year:MHC:Number, for example 2025:MHC:485. This citation format applies across all Madras HC matters, not only IPD ones, but it is the fastest way to pull up a specific IPD order once you already have the citation, rather than searching by party name.

The Madurai Bench: a separate sweep

The Madras High Court sits at two locations, the Principal Seat in Chennai and the Madurai Bench. IP Division matters can arise at either, and the Madurai Bench maintains its own cause list and case-status search separate from the Chennai listing. Tracking Madras IPD matters comprehensively means checking both, not just the Chennai cause list.

The dropdown is not scrapeable

Where Delhi’s case-type list can at least be read off a static dropdown, Madras’s case-type selector on its case-status search is populated dynamically (AJAX) after the page loads, rather than present in the raw HTML. That makes it materially harder to enumerate programmatically, and the site’s terms disallow automated or bulk access in any case. In practice this means a Madras IPD search, whether by Act, by party name, or by citation, has to go through the portal’s own search form rather than being read out of the page source.

04What no code covers: the Designs gap

One absence in the Delhi list is worth flagging on its own. The 2022 amendments to the Delhi High Court Intellectual Property Rights Division Rules extended the Division’s scope to contemplate design matters and semiconductor integrated circuit layout-design matters alongside trademarks, copyright, patents, GI, and plant varieties. Yet the case-type list in day-to-day use at Delhi does not include a dedicated COMM.IPD-DE (Designs) or a semiconductor-layout code sitting alongside C.A.(COMM.IPD-TM) and the rest.

Design infringement and cancellation matters at Delhi are, in practice, still filed and tracked under the ordinary commercial suit and appeal codes rather than a design-specific IPD suffix. If design tracking is your actual need rather than case-code lookups, see our separate guide on tracking design infringement cases in India, which covers the Designs Act, 2000 route in full.

05Court-by-court search tools compared

Delhi and Madras expose different search capabilities on their public portals. The table below is a straight, honest comparison, current as of the date shown.

The short version: Delhi is the only one of the two that lets you filter directly by IP-specific case type. Madras compensates with an Act-wise search and a working neutral citation system, but you cannot isolate “IPD matters” as a filter the way you can at Delhi. And critically, no commercial legaltech product currently exposes IPD case-type filtering as a search feature, at either court. Every case-tracking and litigation-search vendor operating in India, including Claw, works by party name, case number, or CNR number, not by replicating a court’s internal case-type dropdown.

06How to actually search Delhi and Madras IPD matters

Putting the two systems together, here is a practical route for each common question.

Finding all trademark rectifications filed at Delhi this year

Use the Delhi HC case-status search, set the case-type filter to C.O.(COMM.IPD-TM), and set the year filter to the current year. This is the single most direct use of the code list above, and it is not possible to do this precisely at Madras, which has no equivalent case-type filter.

Finding a specific Madras IPD matter when you have a citation

If you have the neutral citation, for example in the Year:MHC:Number format, search it directly on the Madras HC judgment portal rather than trying to locate the matter by case type.

Finding Madras IP filings by statute, without a case number

Go through eCourts HC Services, select Madras as the court, and use the Act-wise search against the Trade Marks Act, 1999, the Patents Act, 1970, the Copyright Act, 1957, or the Designs Act, 2000, as relevant, remembering to check the Madurai Bench separately from the Chennai listing.

Automating either dropdown

Delhi’s case-type dropdown is at least readable from the page, but both courts’ terms of use restrict automated or bulk querying of their case-status portals, and Madras’s dropdown is AJAX-populated in any case, making it awkward to enumerate even where policy allowed it. A monitoring workflow that respects this generally means periodic manual or semi-manual searches, or using a tool that has its own agreed way of pulling updates, rather than scripting the dropdown directly.

No commercial product exposes IPD case-type filtering as a search feature. The code list itself is the tool, not something you can buy.

07Where Claw fits

Claw is an all-in-one legaltech platform for Indian advocates, law firms, and corporate legal teams, combining AI-based case search, an AI legal assistant (Legal GPT), case management, and compliance automation across all Indian courts and tribunals.

Be precise about what this page is and is not describing. The Delhi and Madras case-type codes and dropdown searches above are raw court-registry features, and Claw does not replicate the raw IPD case-type dropdown search at either court. What Claw does is the step that comes after you already have a case number, a party name, or you want a standing watch: it tracks hearings, orders, and cause lists for IP matters, including IPD matters, across 8,200+ Indian courts that publish a case website, so that once a C.O.(COMM.IPD-TM) rectification or a W.P.(IPD) matter is on your radar, you get alerted on WhatsApp or email rather than having to check the portal yourself.

Claw also covers the registry side that sits alongside this court-tracking layer. Its IPR Solutions tab tracks IP India registry matters across trademarks, patents, designs, and geographical indications: gazette and Trade Marks Journal publication monitoring that flags conflicting entries, pending compliances including trademark renewals and patent annuity or response deadlines, and pending hearings arising from registry filings. Together with IP judgment research over 30 crore+ judgments and LegalGPT, that combination, registry plus court plus AI research, in one product, is what Claw is built around for the Indian IP market. One honest exception: Claw does not yet track copyright registration at the separate Copyright Office; for copyright it covers the court and litigation side only.

Where Claw is honest about not leading: for deep multi-jurisdiction enterprise IP portfolio docketing, foreign-filing management, and annuity payment services spanning many countries, dedicated global IP management platforms such as Anaqua, Clarivate, and Dennemeyer go further. For very high volume, per-record docketing depth built specifically for large specialist IP firms, tools such as Iolite and JSK are built for that scale. And for teams whose docketing is centred on the USPTO or CIPO first, Alt Legal is built around that automation. For an Indian team that wants registry tracking, court tracking, and AI research together, Claw has a free plan for individual advocates, a Premium plan at Rs 1,099 per month (Rs 10,999 per year), and Enterprise on quote. A separate litigation-search product is priced per search, around Rs 250 per search, for teams that only need that. To see the fuller case-tracking picture at Delhi specifically, see Delhi High Court case tracking software, and for design-specific and GI-specific tracking, see tracking design infringement cases in India and tracking GI disputes in India.

08Sources and further reading

Primary sources used for this reference:

• Delhi High Court, case-type status search (the live dropdown behind the code list above): delhihighcourt.nic.in
• Delhi High Court, Intellectual Property Rights Division notifications: delhihighcourt.nic.in
• eCourts High Court Services, Madras (Act-wise and case-status search): hcservices.ecourts.gov.in
• Madras High Court, Madurai Bench cause lists: mhc.tn.gov.in
• Claw: clawlaw.in

Court portals change their dropdowns, filters, and terms of use without a public changelog. Re-verify the code list and search behaviour described here against the live portals before relying on them for a filing or a court appearance.

09Frequently asked questions