Under the Indian Patent Act a patent is available on an invention that is new, useful and is not obvious to the person skilled in the art. The invention, a product or a process, must satisfy the test of constituting an inventive step, which means the improvement must produce a new result or a new or better article. In the case Strix Limited vs Maharaja Appliances Limited, which recently came up before the Delhi High Court, the technology in use was claimed to be a part of the public domain.
