Source: LiveLawBiz

The Supreme Court has appointed Senior Advocate Swathi Sukumar as Amicus Curiae to assist on technical aspects and law in a patent challenge brought by inventor Caleb Suresh Motupalli concerning a claimed invention titled "Necktie Persona-Extender/Environment-integrator and method for Super-Augmenting a Persona to Manifest a Pan-Environment Super-Cyborg." Motupalli filed the Indian national phase application in June 2012; the Controller of Patents rejected the application in April 2021 for lack of enablement, lack of clarity, amended claims extending beyond the original scope, lack of inventive step, and non-patentability, and reaffirmed rejection after review in October 2021. A bench of Justice K.V. Viswanathan and Justice Alok Aradhe issued notice on the petition and the delay condonation application, and the matter is listed next for hearing on August 24, 2026.

The Madras High Court had previously held the appeal was not maintainable under Section 117-A because no statutory appeal lies against an order-in-review under Section 77(1)(f) of the Patents Act, but examined the merits "without prejudice" and concluded the complete specification failed to enable a person skilled in the art. The High Court observed that the appellant had "coalesced" patent and non-patent literature disclosures and had not adequately explained how the claimed technologies would achieve the asserted persona extension and augmentation, and therefore dismissed the appeal. Motupalli has approached the Supreme Court by special leave petition (SPECIAL LEAVE PETITION (CIVIL) Diary No(s). 20319/2026); the Supreme Court allowed the appointed amicus to engage an instructing counsel of her choice.