Public Working for Reasonable Trial

1Section 32 excludes from the ‘state of the art’ the working of an invention for trial of an invention. It provides that an invention shall not be deemed to have been anticipated by reason that at any time within one year before the priority date of the relevant claim, the invention was publicly worked in India by the applicant of the patent or the patentee or any other person with their consent, provided such working was for the purposes of reasonable trial and was reasonably necessary to work the invention in public.

2In Yahoo v Assistant Controller of Patents and Designs (2011) the Intellectual Property Appellate Board held that “The word ‘much earlier’ are not sufficient to take away the protection which S.32 gives to the patentee who is admitting anticipation of the claimed invention. There ought to have been a categorical finding that the trial version was working in public before the 12 month period for citing this D10 as a novelty destroying document. Any provision which operates as a rule of limitation must be construed strictly, for the rules of limitation take away a legal right.” (para 13) It held that “The date from which the period of limitation starts is definite and unchangeable. It is fixed.” (para 13)