You Shouldn’t have filed a Post-Grant Opposition, says Bombay High Court

Safex Chemical India Ltd vs The Controller Of Patents And another

In this case, Safex Chemical India Limited (“Safex”) filed a writ petition before the Bombay High Court with respect to the denial of the opportunity to respond to amendments in a pre-grant opposition. The patent application in the case is related to the chemical composition for increasing crop yield. This application was filed by Deepak P. Shah (“Deepak”).

Safex filed a pre-grant representation against grant of the patent to Deepak. Following the pre-grant opposition, Deepak filed amendments to his claims before the Controller of Patents. The Controller heard the parties and granted a patent over the final amended claims. Safex approached the Bombay High Court through a writ petition claiming that it was not given an opportunity by the Controller to respond to the final amended claims. Before that Safex also filed a post-grant opposition against the patent granted to Deepak.

After hearing the parties, the Court dismissed the writ petition. It stated that the writ petition would have been entertained if Safex had approached the Court without filing the pre-grant opposition. After it filed the pre-grant opposition, two Opposition Boards were constituted, and the hearing was also fixed. Under the circumstances, the Court was not inclined to entertain the writ petition.

Citation: Safex Chemical India Ltd vs The Controller Of Patents And another, Decided by Bombay High Court on 13 October, 2022, available at: https://indiankanoon.org/doc/51123752/, visited on 15th October, 2022.

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