Title: NIPPON STEEL CORPRATION vs THE ASSISTANT CONTROLLER OF PATENTS AND DESIGNS
Date of Decision: 7th July, 2023
+ C.A.(COMM.IPD-PAT) 36/2022
CORAM: JUSTICE PRATHIBA M. SINGH
Introduction
Delhi High Court has set aside the order passed by the Assistant Controller of Patents & Designs under section 15 of the Patents act and remanded for fresh consideration to the Respondent- Controller of Patents and Designs within a period of two months from today.
Facts of the case
The Appellant, Nippon Steel Corporation, filed the current appeal according to section 117A(2) of the Patents Act, 1970 (hereafter, “Act” disputing the contested ruling dated March 5, 2012 made under Section 15 of the Act.
According to the impugned order, the Respondent-Assistant Controller of Patents & Designs rejected the Appellant’s application bearing no. 435/DEL/2006 for the grant of a patent in respect of an invention titled “Non-Oriented Electrical Steel Excellent in Magnetic Properties in Rolling Direction and Method of Production of Same” (hereinafter, “subject invention”).
The Tribunals Reforms Act of 2021 allowed for the transfer of the current appeal, which was first brought in 2012 before the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (the “IPAB”), to this Court.
Analysis of the court
In Agriboard International LLC v. Deputy Controller of Patents and Designs [C.A.(COMM.IPD-PAT) 4/2022, dated March 31, 2022], this Court held that discussion of the prior art, the subject invention, and how the subject invention would be obvious to a person skilled in the art would be mandatory while rejecting an application for lack of inventive step. It is inadequate to simply get to the plain judgement that the subject invention lacks creative step since doing so would violate Section 2(1)(ja) of the Act.
Following the ruling in Agriboard (supra), this Court once more, in Gogoro Inc. v. Controller of Patents and Designs [C.A. (Comm.IPD-PAT) 25/2021, dated 24th August 2022], set aside the Respondent’s unjustified order refusing the grant of the patent, and restored the patent application to its original position.
Reading the contested order will reveal that the originality and innovative step concerns under Section 2 of the Act were not properly discussed before the order was made. The patent application was abruptly dismissed by the challenged ruling, which makes no mention of any of the FER’s stated previous art. This Court believes that the issue merits being remitted to the Respondent-Controller of Patents and Designs for new consideration after reviewing the contested ruling.
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Written By – Shreyanshu Gupta
