Quasi-judicial bodies as part of their adjudicatory functions are burdened to provide a reasoned decision in the lights of the facts presented to them. The Madras High Court, in its judgment dated 11th December 2023 reiterated this principle of natural justice in a matter of appeal to an order of patent refusal.
The Appellant made the present patent application in 2018 for an invention titled “System and method for determining quality attributes of raw material of textiles”. The application consisted of 10 claims, of which 2 were ‘method claims’ and the rest were ‘system claims’
The First Examination Report pointed out that there are deficiencies in the application under section 3(k) of the Patents Act 1970 and lack of inventive step. Accordingly, amended claims were submitted in response. At the hearing stage, where these objections were raised again, the Applicant retained only the method claims and eliminated all system claims.
