The integrity of India’s patent examination process rests on a foundational procedural guarantee: before refusing a patent application, the Controller must give the applicant a hearing. That guarantee, embedded in Section 14 of the Patents Act\u00a0became the pivot of a Bombay High Court challenge after a Controller’s rejection managed to issue without it.<\/p>\n
AIC246 AG & Co. KG (“AIC246”), incorporated under German law, filed Patent Application No. 201627001750 on 21st March 2016, seeking protection for “Combinations Comprising a Triazole Fungicide and a Biological Control Agent.” The Patent Office published the application on 7th October 2016, and a First Examination Report (“FER”) under Section 12 issued on 4th December 2020. The Controller subsequently scheduled a Section 14 hearing for 5th January 2021. Less than an hour before it was due to begin, the Controller cancelled it, expressly recording that a fresh hearing would be granted “in due course.”<\/p>\n
That assurance sat on record as a third-party opponent filed a pre-grant opposition under Section 25(1) after AIC246 replied to the FER. The Controller conducted a bilateral opposition hearing on 19th April 2023, heard both parties, received written submissions, and then, without honouring the promised Section 14 hearing or passing any order under Section 15, rejected AIC246’s application solely on grounds arising under Section 25(1). AIC246 challenged the rejection in Commercial Miscellaneous Petition No. 72 of 2025 before the Bombay High Court’s Commercial Division.<\/p>\n
The court’s reasoning began with the statutory architecture. Chapters IV and V of the Patents Act bear distinct titles for a reason, and following the Delhi High Court Division Bench’s reasoning in Novartis AG v. Natco Pharma & Anr.<\/em>, the court held that examination under Chapter IV and opposition under Chapter V are independent statutory pathways that may proceed in parallel but cannot be collapsed into a single proceeding. The Controller’s power to grant or refuse a patent under Section 15 belongs to Chapter IV and operates independently of whatever pre-grant opposition is pending. Critically, the court confirmed that opponents have no right to participate in Section 14 hearings: their exclusion at that stage is a deliberate feature of the statute, not an oversight, and does not infringe natural justice in any way.<\/p>\n On the mandatory character of the Section 14 hearing, the court was unequivocal. Abraxis Bioscience LLC v. Union of India<\/em> had established that this opportunity constitutes a statutory right of the applicant, the denial of which vitiates an order as contrary to natural justice. The Calcutta High Court’s ruling in UPL Limited v. Union of India & Ors.<\/em> reinforced the point: opposition and examination must be heard separately, even if both ultimately conclude in a single composite order under Section 15. Patent Manual paragraph 09.04(12) placed this beyond dispute, and Rule 55(5) independently confirmed that a speaking order under Section 15 is required after opposition proceedings. The Patent Office’s reliance on Snehlata Gupte<\/em> and Merck v. Glenmark<\/em> was rejected outright: those decisions addressed an entirely different question and provided no support for the proposition that examination and opposition could be merged into one proceeding.<\/p>\n The court noted that before the pre-grant opposition was even filed, the Controller had already cancelled AIC246’s scheduled Section 14 hearing with an explicit written assurance of rescheduling the hearing. That assurance was never acted upon. After the Section 25(1) opposition hearing, the Controller simply rejected AIC246’s application solely under Section 25(1), without any Section 15 order. The court held that this violated the statutory scheme, the Patent Manual, and the Controller’s own unambiguous promise.<\/p>\n AIC246 placed on record multiple comparable orders in which the Patent Office itself had conducted separate hearings under Sections 14 and 25(1) before issuing composite Section 15 orders. This consistent practice confirmed that the Controller’s approach in this case was arbitrary, unexplained, and at odds with established procedure. The court observed that accepting it would permit the Controller to bypass mandatory Chapter IV requirements, refuse patents without Section 15 orders, and adopt different procedures across matters without justification. Such an outcome could not be countenanced.<\/p>\n The court described the Patent Office’s defence as not merely wrong but, in its own word, “befuddling.” The position that a Section 25(1) hearing displaces the need for Section 14 ran contrary to the Patents Act, the Patent Rules, the Patent Manual, and three binding or persuasive judicial decisions, all at once. The court also noted that the Patent Office had initially failed, despite multiple opportunities, to file any reply affidavit; it did so only after the court formally expressed its serious view of that non-compliance. When the reply finally came, it sought to justify a position that the court found wholly untenable in law and wholly inconsistent with the Controller’s own established practice in other matters.<\/p>\n In view of the observations and the arguments presented by both the parties, the Bombay High Court held that:<\/p>\nSection 14: Mandatory, Not Discretionary<\/strong><\/h3>\n
A Promise made and broken: Arbitrary procedure<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Why the Patent Office’s Defence Cannot Stand<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Findings<\/h2>\n
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