Delhi High Court Rejects BlackBerry’s Patent Claim for Colour-Coded Messaging

The Delhi High Court has dismissed an appeal by BlackBerry Limited seeking a patent for its colour-coded messaging feature.

Justice Tejas Karia upheld the Controller of Patents' decision, ruling that assigning colours to message recipients lacked the "inventive step" required under the Indian Patents Act.

The Court observed that the feature was an obvious extension of existing technologies and fell under Section 3(k) as a software-based method for presenting information.

The Court further noted that the invention solved a human error rather than a technical problem, as it did not improve the device's hardware or system performance.

[BlackBerry Ltd. v. Controller of Patents]