Post-grant oppositions are a favourite tool of large implementers facing an inconvenient patent — but they have to be more than a scatter of grounds. In Flipkart Internet Pvt. Ltd. v. The Joint Controller of Patents and Designs [CMA(PT) No. 9 of 2024], the Madras High Court upheld the rejection of Flipkart’s Section 25(2) opposition to Voicemonk’s patent 312437, for a virtual-agent system, finding the Controller’s reasoning sound on every front.
The invention and the opposition
Voicemonk’s patent — “Systems and Methods for Virtual Agents to Help Customers and Business” — claims a virtual agent that receives audio input, identifies desired actions, associates them with tags, correlates multiple actions (search, sort, select, submit, compare) and executes them to produce a single consolidated output, reducing user interactions. Flipkart’s post-grant opposition alleged lack of novelty and inventive step, non-patentability under Section 3(k), insufficiency, and non-compliance with Section 8. It also complained the order was unreasoned, the claims too wide, the “tags” feature technically irrelevant, and that certain claims went unexamined.
Why each ground failed
On novelty, the Controller had run a claim-wise, feature-wise comparison against prior art D1–D3 (including Google and Apple patents); applying Lava International v. Ericsson (2024), anticipation requires disclosure of all essential features, and the key features — correlation of multiple actions and their execution as a unified output — were absent. On inventive step, documents D4–D7 still did not disclose the claimed combination, in particular the sequential, hierarchical and lateral modes of correlation. On Section 3(k), the Court held the claims set out sequential steps performed by a virtual agent with technical validity, so they were not a computer programme per se. The Section 8 objection failed on the facts (timely Form 3, condonation, and the point was not even maintained in the hearing notice), and on natural justice the Court found both sides heard, the Opposition Board report considered, and the order reasoned.
Why it matters
Flipkart v. Voicemonk is a useful counterweight to the steady run of applicant-side wins on procedural unfairness: here the Controller did the work — feature mapping, a real inventive-step analysis, and a reasoned Section 3(k) finding — and the order held. For CRI patentees, the decision underscores that a claim anchored in concrete, correlated steps producing a technical output can survive the Section 3(k) gauntlet; for opponents, that a Section 25(2) challenge needs disclosure of every claimed feature in a single reference for anticipation, and a coherent motivation story for obviousness, not a catalogue of grounds. Contrast this with the Section 3(k) misstep in this blog’s note on Navya Network, where the Office, not the patentee, came up short.
Sources & further reading: Section 25(2); Section 3(k); Lava International v. Ericsson.
Educational note: This case summary is general information, not legal advice.