Journal of Intellectual Property Rights

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Patent Law: Decisions of the Supreme Court of India


Affiliations
1 Jindal Global Law School, O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat, Haryana — 131 001,, India
 

This Paper seeks to examine the theoretical underpinnings of The Patents Act, 1970 (Patents Act), as constructed by the Supreme Court of India (Supreme Court) in the last 71 years. An analysis of decisions of the Supreme Court reveals that: (i) in none of the cases, validity of The Patents Act was challenged; (ii) unlike the decisions on copyright and design laws where the Court invoked both Labour and Utilitarian frameworks as supplementary and complimentary to each other to justify the ‘why’ of two distinct copyrights envisaged by The Copyright Act, 1957 and The Designs Act, 2000, the Court in patent cases has used only Utilitarian Theory; (iii) Court has not ignored Natural Right and Labour theories as in its opinion Natural Right justification is only a means to achieve the end of social good; (iv) in the opinion of the Court, both ‘sense’ and ‘nonsense’ of Bentham may coexist as means and end; and (v) protection of patent rewards labour put in by the inventor and in exchange provides invention and knowledge to the society. Paper argues that the Court should have applied judicially manageable standards to rigorously scrutinize the theoretical underpinnings of Patent Law from all possible angles.

Keywords

Utilitarian Theory, The Patents Act, 1970, Theoretical Underpinning, Supreme Court of India, Ratiocination, Intellectual Property, Labour Theory, Natural Right Theory, Publici Juris, Society, Scientific Research, Nonsense on Stilts, Industrial Progress, Invention, Discovery, Patent System, Common Law, Utility.
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  • Raza A, Theoretical underpinnings of Copyright and Design Laws: Decisions of the Supreme Court of India, Journal of Intellectual Property Rights, 26 (4) (2021) 220–234.

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  • Act 16 of 2000.

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  • The Supreme Court of India came into being on 28 January 1950 — two days after India became a SOVEREIGN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC i.e., 26 January 1950, https://main.sci.gov.in/history (accessed on 6 October 2021).

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  • Patent Law: Decisions of the Supreme Court of India

Abstract Views: 235  |  PDF Views: 124

Authors

Aqa Raza
Jindal Global Law School, O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat, Haryana — 131 001,, India

Abstract


This Paper seeks to examine the theoretical underpinnings of The Patents Act, 1970 (Patents Act), as constructed by the Supreme Court of India (Supreme Court) in the last 71 years. An analysis of decisions of the Supreme Court reveals that: (i) in none of the cases, validity of The Patents Act was challenged; (ii) unlike the decisions on copyright and design laws where the Court invoked both Labour and Utilitarian frameworks as supplementary and complimentary to each other to justify the ‘why’ of two distinct copyrights envisaged by The Copyright Act, 1957 and The Designs Act, 2000, the Court in patent cases has used only Utilitarian Theory; (iii) Court has not ignored Natural Right and Labour theories as in its opinion Natural Right justification is only a means to achieve the end of social good; (iv) in the opinion of the Court, both ‘sense’ and ‘nonsense’ of Bentham may coexist as means and end; and (v) protection of patent rewards labour put in by the inventor and in exchange provides invention and knowledge to the society. Paper argues that the Court should have applied judicially manageable standards to rigorously scrutinize the theoretical underpinnings of Patent Law from all possible angles.

Keywords


Utilitarian Theory, The Patents Act, 1970, Theoretical Underpinning, Supreme Court of India, Ratiocination, Intellectual Property, Labour Theory, Natural Right Theory, Publici Juris, Society, Scientific Research, Nonsense on Stilts, Industrial Progress, Invention, Discovery, Patent System, Common Law, Utility.

References