- Case number
- (T)CMA(PT) No.146 of 2023
- Court
- Madras High Court
- Date of judgment
- Judge
- Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy
- Outcome
- Dismissed
Headnote
Appeal against refusal of a patent for a lamp made from a panchagavya-based composition dismissed, the claimed invention being both excluded under section 3(p) and obvious. On obviousness the Court held that the question is not whether there are differences between the cited prior art and the claimed invention but whether the invention would be obvious to the person skilled in the art, to whom knowledge of the cited prior art and common general knowledge is imputed. Prior art D1 alone disclosed no coherent thread leading to the invention, but D3 disclosed lamps made from cow dung, ghee and essential oils, and on Genentech v. Hospira, where the general conditions of a claim are disclosed in the prior art it is not inventive to discover optimum or workable ranges by routine experimentation. Once the ingredients are traditional knowledge, working out proportions is routine. A test report was given no weight because the samples had not been collected by the testing house, and in any event the reduced carbon footprint was incidental to known properties of the ingredients. Sections 29(2) and 31(d) did not assist, both going to anticipation rather than obviousness.
Headnote by BRB Legal, written from the judgment: a summary for reference, not legal advice. Read the judgment itself before relying on it.