ZERIA PHARMACEUTICAL CO Vs. CONTROLLER OF PATENTS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This judgment addresses the issue of refusal of Indian Patent Application No.3630/DLNP/2011 titled "A COMPOUND REPRESENTED BY FORMULA (5a)", filed on 13/5/2011 as a divisional patent application out of Indian Patent Application number 1090/DELNP/2007[Hereinafter referred to as the "subject application"], by the Assistant Controller of Patents and Designs.[Hereinafter referred to as the "Controller"]vide order dtd. 20/10/2016[Hereinafter referred to as the "impugned order"] under the provisions of the Patents Act, 1970 (as amended from time to time)[Hereinafter referred to as the "Act"].

(2.) The invention under the subject application relates to a novel intermediate compound formula (5a), represented as A 2- [(2-hydroxy4,5-dimethoxybenzoyl) amino]-1, 3-thiazole-4-carboxylic acid methyl ester compound in which is a ring "A" represents a benzene ring/ a 6- membered aromatic heterocycle containing one or two selected from a nitrogen atom, an oxygen atom, and a sulphur atom, containing:-

(3.) The Controller issued a First Examination Report[Hereinafter referred to as the "FER"] raising both formal and technical objections to the subject application on 24/2/2015. The major objection was that the subject matter of Claims 1 and 2 did not constitute an invention under Sec. 2(1)(ja) of the Act in view of prior art document D1: EP 0994 108 A 1(ZERIA PHARMA CO. LTD. [JP] (2000-04-09) and the prior art document D2: US 5981 557 A (NAGASAWA MASAAKI[JP] ET AL.) (1999-11-09) and the other objection was that the subject matter of Claims 1 and 2 fell within the scope of Sec. 3(d) of the Act.