- Case number
- C.A.(COMM.IPD-PAT) 158/2022
- Court
- Delhi High Court
- Date of judgment
- Judge
- C. Hari Shankar
- Outcome
- Set aside
Headnote
Refusal quashed where the order was a verbatim reproduction of the hearing notice, set out twice over, with not a word of reference to the applicant's reply. The Court described an apparently endemic problem in the office of the Controller, of rejecting applications by reproducing the objections without any application of mind, and noted that because the twenty year term runs from the date of application, laconic refusals leave hardly any residual life in a patent that is eventually granted. General directions were issued: every order rejecting an application, or accepting or rejecting a pre-grant or post-grant opposition, must be reasoned and speaking and must deal systematically and sequentially with each objection, whether in the First Examination Report, the hearing notice or the opposition, giving reasons why it is sustained or rejected; and even where a patent is granted on the applicant's reply being accepted with no opposition, the order should briefly say why the reply was accepted, so as to assist any later post-grant opponent. The requirement does not apply where a patent is granted with no objection at all.
Headnote by BRB Legal, written from the judgment: a summary for reference, not legal advice. Read the judgment itself before relying on it.