Delhi court fixes India's mental-act patent problem — but should judges write the rules?
By Freny Patel ( August 18, 2026, 05:18 GMT | Comment) -- India's patent system finally has a test for deciding when an invention is merely a mental act, after the Delhi High Court stepped in where the patent office hadn't. The seven-step framework could curb arbitrary refusals and help technology companies, but its judicial origins raise an awkward question over who should write patent-examination policy — particularly as the US considers moving in the opposite direction by curbing judge-made eligibility rules.India's patent examiners have spent more than two decades with a statutory power to reject inventions as mental acts, but no settled test for deciding what a mental act actually is. The Delhi High Court has now supplied one....
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