The novelty of a patent must be established by clear prior art disclosures, with emphasis on systematic analysis distinguishing novelty from non-obviousness.

ORDER :

N. SENTHILKUMAR, J.

The present Appeal has been filed under Section 117-A of The Patents Act , challenging the order dated 9.10.2023, passed by the first respondent dismissing the Post-grant Opposition against Patent Application No.312437.

2. Brief facts of the case are as under:-

a) The second respondent herein viz., VOICEMONK INC. through their agents Shri.Kartik Puttaiah of M/s.InvnTree IP Services had filed a patent Application in Application No. 312437 seeking registration of patent for their invention called “SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR VIRTUAL AGENTS TO HELP CUSTOMERS AND BUSINESS” on 18.11.2016

b) According to the 2^nd Respondent, the invention is meant to serve the customers, who intend to make online shopping with ease of access. The invention, according to the second respondent herein, would address the inconvenience involved in the normal way of exploration in the website in search of the products which the customers wish to purchase.

c) The invention takes into consideration the preferences of users and generates suggestions which may be suitable to the users. The system helps in suggestion and selection of products on a website or software application. Further, the system helps in speaking with customers and executing their orders. The system also helps customers to locate items in a brick and mortar store.

Thus, the invention will be advantageous at least in optimizing the process of selection of products and execution of actions of a user. Further, it is advantageous in providing better user experience and decreasing time and effort required from users end.

d) With regard to their invention, the second respondent herein has originally made, as many as 36 claims as on 18.11.2016.

e) On 16.7.2018, the Controller of Patents had issued the First Examination Report on the patent sought to be registered by the second respondent herein called for their reply. On 13.12.2018, the second respondent herein had submitted their reply with the amended claims.

f) On 21.2.2019, a hearing notice was issued by the Assistant Controller of Patents & Designs to the second respondent, bringing to their notice certain issues with regard to the claims made by the second respondent.

g) Thereupon, the second respondent had filed their written submissions and also the amended claims on 18.4.2019. Such amended claims are as under:-

"1. A system configured to execute actions based on user input, the system comprising a virtual agent (100) comprising a virtual agent client (202) and a virtual agent server (104) for an application, wherein the virtual agent is deployed by the virtual agent client (202) and the virtual agent server 104 to function with the application, wherein the virtual agent server (104) is configured to:

receive at least an audio input from a user of the application;

identify among a plurality of actions, using the input, an action desired by the user to be performed;execute one or more actions among the plurality of actions;

characterized in that,

the virtual agent is configured to:

store, in the virtual agent server (104) correlation between the plurality of actions available in the application, wherein the actions comprise search, sort, select, submit and compare;

associate one or more of the plurality of actions with one or more tags; and

execute the one or more actions among the plurality of actions, based on the desired action and the correlation between the actions available in the application; and display an output page to the user, wherein, in the absence of the virtual agent, the plurality of actions would result in display of more than one output page displayed one after the other.

2. The system according to claim 1, wherein the virtual agent is configured to extract the correlation between the action