The Madras High Court, in the case of Novozymes A/s vs The Assistant Controller of Patents & Designs [CMA(PT) No. 19 of 2025], set aside the order of the Controller refusing Novozymes’s patent application.

Novozymes’s patent application number 202047008467, entitled “Ejector Equipped Fermenter”, relates to fermenters for fermenting micro-organisms for the production of a fermentation product. According to the Appellant, the invention marked a departure from conventional stirred fermenters by replacing stirrers with injectors, thereby yielding multiple economic advantages, including reduced construction costs, lower energy consumption during operation, and improved scalability.

The Controller had refused the application on the grounds of lack of inventive step under Section 2(1)(j) and non-patentability under Sections 3(d) and 3(f) of the Patents Act.

The Appellant challenged the refusal on the following grounds:

• While assessing inventive step under Section 2(1)(ja), the Controller failed to return a finding on economic significance, despite recording the Appellant’s submissions;
• The analysis on obviousness did not conform to the settled five-step obviousness analysis;
• The findings under Sections 3(d) and 3(f) were unreasoned;

The Court found merit in the Appellant’s challenge. It observed that the Controller had failed to engage with the submission that the claimed invention demonstrated economic significance, which is a statutorily relevant consideration under Section 2(1)(ja). On the issue of obviousness, the Court held that the impugned order was conclusory in nature and did not disclose any analysis as to why a person skilled in the art (PSITA) would be motivated to combine the cited prior art teachings to arrive at the claimed invention. The Court further noted that the order did not clearly indicate which limb of Section 3(d) had been invoked to deny patentability. Similarly, the finding under Section 3(f), that the invention constituted a mere arrangement or re-arrangement of known devices, was held to be unsupported by any substantive reasoning.

In light of these deficiencies, the Court remanded the matter to the Patent Office for re-consideration.