Part I provides factual context to the post below. Interpreting Section 3(i) Section 3 is the key section on “patent eligibility” and lists out what are not “inventions” under the Indian Patents Act. One such non-eligible patentable subject matter is listed in Section 3(i): “Any process for the medicinal, surgical, curative, prophylactic, diagnostic, therapeutic or other treatment of human beings or any process for a similar treatment of animals to render them free of disease or to increase their economic…

In March 2023, the Delhi High Court will consider two significant rejections by the Patent Office (PTO) that will determine the fate of diagnostic method patents in India. The PTO recently rejected EMD Millipore’s patent application involving IR based spectroscopy and Sequenom’s patent application involving non-invasive prenatal genetic diagnostics on the grounds that both inventions were not patent eligible under Section 3(i) of the Patents Act, 1970.  This provision excludes diagnostic processes from patent protection. Both rejections have been challenged…