What a buzzkill.
India’s patent office has turned down a Canadian company’s application to patent a vibrator because sex toys violate “public order and morality,” according to the BBC.
Despite the decision, a 2011 court ruling in India said sex toys could not be considered obscene.
Ontario-based Standard Innovation Corp. applied for a patent in India for a new vibrator, to prevent generic gadgets from being pedded in the market, said Shamnad Basheer, a professor at India’s National Law School who is working on a book about public health law.
In April, the patents office rejected the application, saying that sex toys lead “to obscenity and moral deprivation of individuals.”
“These are toys that are not considered useful or productive. Mostly these are considered to be morally degrading by the law,” the office said.
“The law views sex toys negatively and has never engaged positively with the notion of sexual pleasure.”
In refusing the patent, the office also cited Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, a 155-year-old colonial-era law that criminalizes gay sex and unnatural intercourse.
An appeal to strike down provisions of the law is pending before the Supreme Court.
“Why should the patents office handle moral decisions? Officials trained in technical science are not supposed to decide whether an invention is moral or immoral,” Basheer told the BBC.
Sex toys are openly sold online and in a lucrative black market in India.
Last year, a survey by an online store selling sex toys in India found that 62 percent of the buyers were men, while the remaining 38 percent were women.