Summary of "Lecture 10: Roadmap for Patent Creation - Industrial Application by Prof. Gouri Gargate"

Topic and context

Lecture 10 (Module 5, Week 2) of the course “Roadmap for Patent Creation” by Prof. Gouri Gargate.
Focus: the third statutory requirement for patentability in India — industrial application (industrial applicability / utility).

Core definition and legal basis

Statutory definition (India): Section 2(1)(ac) of the Indian Patents Act, 1970 — an invention is “capable of being made or used in an industry.”
Introduced/clarified by the 2002 amendment to the Patents Act.
Purpose: ensure inventions deliver a practical, positive effect to society; the invention must have practical utility (be manufacturable or usable in trade/manufacture in a broad sense).

“Capable of being made or used in an industry.” — Section 2(1)(ac), Indian Patents Act, 1970

Basic assessment steps (methodology)

Confirm the invention meets the other two patentability criteria first:
- Novelty
- Inventive step (non-obviousness)
Apply the statutory definition: is the invention capable of being made or used in an industry?
Ask whether the claimed invention has practical utility — i.e., can it be made or used in industry (broad sense)?
For methods of testing: show how the test improves or controls a product, apparatus, or process; explicitly state the purpose of the test in the patent specification.
Avoid vague/speculative claims — provide working examples, uses, and methods. If claiming improvements, describe how they improve on prior art.
Ensure the claimed subject-matter does not contradict well‑established physical laws and does not fall into statutory exclusions.

Six categories/scenarios that disqualify industrial applicability

Mere intellectual effort or purely theoretical output without practical feasibility (example: gold‑plating water pipes to prevent freezing — impractical).
Purely aesthetic changes that only improve appearance or marketability without practical utility.
Vague or speculative indications of future uses or hypothetical benefits (claims that reserve unexplored research fields without concrete utility or methods).
Claims that contradict well‑established physical laws (example: claiming a hydrogen state with electrons at energies below physically possible limits).
Methods of treatment of the human or animal body by surgery or therapy, and methods of diagnosis on the human or animal body (excluded under Section 3 of the Act).
Use of parts or pieces of the human or animal body for transplant — not considered industrially applicable.

Practical drafting advice

State the practical purpose and intended industrial use of the invention in the specification.
For testing methods, describe the purpose and how the test improves or controls products, apparatus, or processes.
Avoid overbroad or speculative language that claims future/unknown utilities without describing how to achieve them.
Ensure sufficiency of disclosure: describe how to make and use the invention so that industrial applicability is evident.
Do not claim inventions that require abandoning or contradict fundamental scientific principles.

Key examples discussed

Impractical physical solution: gold‑lining pipes to prevent freezing (lacks utility).
Life-sciences example: novel polypeptides (e.g., PDP-1 / VDP1 with sequence IDs) asserting enzymatic activity and speculating roles in cellular housekeeping or cancer without concrete methods/uses — held to be speculative and lacking industrial applicability.
Physically impossible claim: an application claiming a new hydrogen “state” with electrons below the lowest allowed energy — rejected.
Business/method case: a method for “making friends” was held not industrially applicable and treated as an excluded business method.
Technical insufficiency case: a claimed “flying gyroscope” where details were not disclosed — rejected for lack of sufficiency of disclosure and industrial applicability.

Landmark judgments and judicial takeaways

Chiron Corporation v. Murex Diagnostics Ltd.: industrial application requires capability of being made or used in some kind of industry; useless things for no known purpose are not industrially applicable.
High Court of Australia (appeal/application cited): a “product” need not be a substance or article — it can be any artificially created state of affairs with a useful practical effect (e.g., a method that eradicates weeds producing an economically significant result).
John Lurie (case cited): a method for facilitating introductions/social interactions was held not to be industrially applicable (excluded as a business method).
Eastman Kodak Co. v. (case cited): claims failing sufficiency of disclosure and failing to show industrial applicability (for example, where the claimed output did not follow from the disclosed invention) can be rejected.

Note: several case names in the lecture transcript appear garbled by auto‑subtitling; the summary reproduces them as presented in the video.

Overall lesson / summary

Industrial applicability is a distinct, essential component of patentability alongside novelty and inventive step. It requires that an invention be practically usable or manufacturable in some industry (broadly construed). Patentees must: - explicitly show practical applications, - avoid speculative or impossible claims, and - provide sufficient disclosure to demonstrate how the invention is to be made or used.

Speakers / sources featured

Prof. Gouri Gargate (lecturer)
Indian Patents Act, 1970 — Section 2(1)(ac) (statutory source)
Section 3 of the Patents Act (exclusion reference)
Case citations and examples (some transcript names may be garbled)
- Chiron Corporation v. Murex Diagnostics Ltd.
- High Court of Australia decision (appeal/application cited)
- John Lurie (case cited)
- Eastman Kodak Company (case cited)
Examples mentioned: PDP-1 / VDP1 polypeptide, gold‑lining of pipes, flying gyroscope, hypothetical hydrogen state

Note on transcript reliability

The subtitles were auto‑generated and contain several garbled names and fragments. If you want, I can cross‑check and map garbled case names to correct legal citations (for example, confirm and provide links for Chiron Corporation v. Murex Diagnostics Ltd.).