Basically, this manual serves as a guide for patent examiners in determining whether a patent should be granted for CRI. The primary objective of the revised manual is to clarify Section 3(k) of the Patent Act, which pertains to patents related to CRIs. Indian courts have been granting patents to software when there is a âtechnical effectâ or a âtechnical contribution.â The draft guideline includes recent case law which extensively interpreted Section 3(k) and its exclusions.
This is particularly significant for us since the earlier versions appeared to open a backdoor to software patenting and various other organisations have raised the comments as well. Further, we also have been submitting our comments explain our stance on software patents to various forums and institutions.
On a quick glance, I could see that the definition clause for âsoftwareâ is incorporated from dictionary meaning rather than a definition established by Courts or some authoritative source. Further, the definitions of âsoftwareâ and âcomputer programâ remain identical, as similar to earlier versions. We can suggest removing the definition coming from Copyright to prevent confusion and broadening the scope by examiner while granting patents.
Looking forward for members to contribute to this by adding comments or any views.
Thanks to @Harsha_R for creating this thread, and pointing out today (at the BLR meetup) that the deadline has been extended to 30th April.
I skimmed through the legal cases cited, but all of the examples (Section 5) I could understand are things I would (as a cybersecurity and software professional) call a 100% software patent, even if some of it might be inventive or non-obvious to some practitioners. Since they havenât drawn a clear line between what it is that makes these claims patentable v/s not.
Thanks nemo for going through the Guideline and conveying your opinion.
Section 5 of the draft basically provides the examples of claims which are patentable and non-patentable. These Claims come from already decided judgements from various High Courts.
For instance the claims under Example 1 is decided by the Delhi HC that there exist technical effect in the said claim. So the Patent was granted.
However, as righty pointed there no clear line what constitutes technical effect is something that both judiciary and Patent office are not clarifying, leading to dilution of Section 3(k).
I have provided my comments for the Draft Guideline in below word document.
Iâam not sure how this will be taken up and be sent. Since any of the communication, comment, or representations to government institutions require approval of FOSS United. Since we got a new governing body and Is there are process/ mechanism at place how will the comments from the community will be taken up and approved by the governing body?
The CGPDTM hasnât published the comments it received from the public on the first draft, neither has it published meeting notes from the in-person stakeholder meeting itâs said to have conducted in May 2025.
In the coming weeks, we will try and
File a right to information request, asking for an exhaustive list of comments it has received on both the drafts
Collate published analysis of the drafts and add it to this thread.
Hi, late to the party, but some updates on the Right to Information requests we filed in July.
Background
The Office of the Controller General of Patents, Designs & Trade Marks [CGPDTM] held a public consultation for the Draft guidelines for Examinations of Computer Related Inventions (CRIs), 2025, the consultation for the first draft started in March, concluded in April. In May they also held in-person consultations. At the end of it, the CGPDTM hadnât published the comments it received from the public on the first draft nor the details from the in-person consultations.
Subsequently it released a Version 2 of the Draft CRI Guidelines 2025 on June 26, 2025. It was open for public comments till July 7, 2025.
Since the CGPDTM hadnât published the comments it received for the first draft, neither the details from the details from the in-person consultations, we decided to file RTI requests.
Timeline:
July 17th: We filed 3 RTI requests with the CGPDTM. One each requesting responses/comments from everyone on both the drafts, and all internal communications/emails/etc within the ministry with regards to the drafts. The third one asked about exhaustive list of private/public meetings and consultations around these drafts. Questions_CGPDT_R_E_25_00631.pdf (50.9 KB) Questions_CGPDT_R_E_25_00630.pdf (51.2 KB) Questions_CGPDT_R_E_25_00629.pdf (51.9 KB)
July 29th: CGPDTM published the NEW GUIDELINES FOR EXAMINATION OF COMPUTER RELATED INVENTIONS (CRIs) â 2025 and along with it the comments/responses it received on both the drafts and details of in-person consultations on their website.