- Court
- Madras High Court
- Date of judgment
- Outcome
- Set aside
Headnote
Refusal of a long-chain inulin application set aside and the appellant held entitled to grant. The Controller had treated the invention as a mere isolation of naturally occurring inulin from artichoke. The Court held that the novelty claimed lay in fractionalising inulin to achieve a higher molecular weight and a specific chain length profile within a defined range, demonstrated by a comparative table, and not in isolation alone. Against the second prior art the invention showed better solubility, slow fermentation, a stronger prebiotic effect and high gel strengths, none of which that art exhibited, and the Controller had rejected these on mere surmise. The Court added that hindsight construction is impermissible, that mere structural similarity is not enough because a minute change can produce unpredicted results, and that where the same prior art had been considered before grants in the United States, Australia and Europe, the Controller was at least expected to distinguish those grants.
Headnote by BRB Legal, written from the judgment: a summary for reference, not legal advice. Read the judgment itself before relying on it.