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posted 1 year ago
By Ranjan Narula and Suvarna Pandey
To establish whether something is common general knowledge, the first and most important step is to look at the sources from which the skilled addressee could acquire the information.
The Delhi High Court in an Appeal against the Order of Controller of Patents in Agfa NV & anr vs The Assistant controller of patents and designs & anr [C.A.(COMM.IPD-PAT) 477/2022] discusses what constitutes “Common General Knowledge” and lays down important principles and explanations for raising such objections. The Controller refused the patent application because of the claims lacking inventive steps, clarity, and succinctness of the Claim. The application relates to “Manufacturing of decorative laminates by Inkjet” (no. 201617023479).
Lack of Inventiveness
Regarding the objection on the lack of Inventiveness, the impugned order records that steps 1 to 4 have been disclosed in the prior art cited as D5. However, it does not make any mention of step 5. The order admits that prior art document D5 does not teach feature 5a, but the Controller relied upon “common general knowledge” to refuse the Claim. However, the Controller did not provide any reference or basis to establish “common general knowledge” or the fact as to why the persons skilled in the art would apply such “common general knowledge” to the feature mentioned above. This reasoning was challenged by the Appellant (Agfa NV) on the ground that the order does not provide any reference to the “common general knowledge” or the fact as to why the persons skilled in the art would apply such “common general knowledge” to the feature in Step 5.
Court Decision
While examining the issue, the court laid important guidelines for the Controller to rely on “common general knowledge” as a ground for refusing a patent application.
Our comment: Various refusal orders of the Patent Office would show a Patent being refused on Claim(s) based on “common general knowledge” and therefore lacks inventive step. The current order would guide the controller/s at Indian Patent Office to include the source of the “common general knowledge.”
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