The Madras High Court has observed that a statutory appellate remedy under Section 117-A of the Patents Act, 1970 is not provided for against an order-in-review issued under Section 77(1)(f).
The Court in this regard noted that Section 117-A provides for appeals to the High Court against, inter alia, an order of the Controller issued only under the Sections mentioned in sub-section 2 of Section 117-A and that Section 77(1)(f) is absent there.
The High Court, however, went on to scrutinize the appeal on its merits here. It noted that the impugned order was issued in the nature of an order-in-original under Section 15 of the Patents Act, i.e., after a detailed re-examination of the patent application.
The Court in its Judgement dated 29 January 2025 observed that the Controller had dealt with the review application as an original application for grant of patent, conducted a second full-fledged hearing and issued the impugned order in the nature of an order-in-original under Section 15, refusing grant of patent.
However, the appeal was found to be failing even under Sections 10(4), 10(5), and 3(k) of the Patents Act by the Court here. The Court Caleb Suresh Motupalli v. Controller of Patents was of the view that the claimed invention did not disclose any workable criteria to arrive at the intended result, let alone the best mode of performing the invention; was ambiguous and failed to fairly base the claims on the disclosures in the complete specification; and did not possess any technical effect, much less any impact on hardware.