The patent office has refused to grant a patent to Tata Global Beverages (formerly known as Tata Tea) for its 'invention' regarding a process for preparation of flavoured herbal tea. Based on the opposition filed by Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) and TATA Tea failed to provide sufficiency of disclosure of the invention the Controller of Patents refused to grant patent.   Tata Global  Beverages, the patent application has claimed a new flavoured herbal tea composition comprising 1% to 8% of Darjeeling Broken, 10% to 50% of flavour concentrate and the rest being tea particles. Tata Global Beverages had submitted the patent filing without appropriate clarification for the unique taste for the tea composition. It was unable to find out the technical advancement of the application as compared to the existing knowledge. Thus controller had to refuse the grant of patent. Source:  http://www.financialexpress.com/article/markets/commodities/tata-global-bev...