Why the Delhi High Court imposed a ₹1 lakh fine on Google

The Delhi High Court on Tuesday rejected an appeal filed by Google against the order of the Assistant Controller of Patents and Designs rejecting the tech giant’s application for grant of a patent titled “Managing Instant Messaging Sessions on Multiple Devices” [Google LLC v. The Controller of Patents]..Justice Prathiba M Singh imposed a fine of ₹1 lakh on Google for presenting wrong facts and for its failure to disclose information regarding the refusal of a patent by the European Patent Office (EPO).The Court noted that even though Google had said that its patent application before the EPO was abandoned, the record suggested that it was rejected for lack of an inventive step.“Considering the submission made that the EPO application was abandoned and coupled with the fact that the corresponding EU application for the subject patent comprised of not one but two applications, including a divisional application, and that they both were rejected for lack of inventive step, in the present appeal costs are also liable to be imposed. The Appellant in the present appeal not only presented wrong facts to the Court, but also failed to disclose the information regarding the refusal of the EU parent application as also of the divisional application which was filed consequently,” the Court observed..The patent under consideration sought to provide a feature for transferring instant messaging sessions concurrently between devices, and allowed users to continue conversations on different devices.It also provided that users can indicate their preference for their instant messaging sessions not to be mirrored or duplicated when they are not actively using the messaging application, such as when they are idle or away..Google's application for this patent was rejected by the Assistant Controller of Patents and Designs under Section 15 of the Patens Act on the grounds of lack of novelty and inventive step.The company challenged the order before the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB). After the abolition of the IPAB, the appeal got transferred to the Delhi High Court..Justice Singh concluded that the Controller of Patents was right in holding that the steps contemplated in Google’s patent application lacks inventive step and the same is obvious to a person skilled in the art.“The sum and substance of the above discussion is that despite the submissions made on behalf of the Appellant, the subject invention is not entitled for grant of a patent in view of lack of inventive step. Thus, the present appeal is not tenable and is liable to be dismissed,” the Court held.The Court also recorded its appreciation for the assistance of Deputy Controller Neeraj Tayal in deciding the matter..Advocates Vineet Rohilla, Pankaj Soni, Debashish Banerjee, Ankush Verma and Vaishali Joshi appeared for Google.The Controller of Patents was represented through Advocates Arjun Mahajan and Apoorv Upmanyu..[Read Judgment]