Calcutta High Court Sets Aside Patent Office Order Rejecting US Company's Glass Fibre Patent
The Calcutta High Court has set aside a Patent Office order rejecting a patent application filed by OCV Intellectual Capital LLC, a subsidiary of Owens Corning. The court held that the refusal was passed without proper analysis of novelty and inventive step.
A single-judge bench of Justice Ravi Krishan Kapur, in a judgment dated January 6, 2026, held that the Patent Office rejected the application without engaging with the technical submissions made by the company or recording clear reasons explaining how the invention was covered by prior art.
The patent application, titled “Composition for High Performance Glass, High Performance Glass Fiber and Articles Therefrom,” relates to a specialised glass fibre composition intended to deliver the strength and performance of high-end 'S-Glass' variety while enabling production in a more affordable manner using refractory-lined furnaces.
The company had first filed the application internationally in 2007 before entering the Indian national phase. During examination, the Patent Office rejected the application on the ground that the claimed invention lacked novelty and inventive step and amounted to a mere admixture of known substances.
Challenging the rejection, the company argued that the Patent Office failed to assess the invention as a whole and ignored submissions showing that the prior art, in fact, discouraged the claimed invention. It was claimed that the invention addressed a technical problem by achieving enhanced performance through a cost-effective manufacturing process.
The Patent Office, on the other hand, maintained that the claimed glass composition was already disclosed in earlier documents and that no technical advancement had been shown.
The Court, however, noted that the refusal order merely listed prior art references without explaining how they already covered the patent claims or rendered the invention obvious.
Explaining the concept of 'teaching away,' the Court observed, “The doctrine of teaching away is well recognized and applies whenever the inventor researches in a direction opposite to the direction predicted in the prior art. In other words, the doctrine applies when the prior art discouraged the persons skilled in the art from doing what the invention did.”
It added that the Patent Office had not examined whether the prior art “taught away” from the claimed invention or whether the claimed composition produced any technical effect.
Finding that the Patent Office's conclusion regarding the absence of synergy was unsupported by reasoning, the court noted, “The contention that the claimed composition produces lower-cost high performance glass that and is a direct melt process in a refractory lined furnace has not even been dealt with in the impugned order.”
Holding that patent refusal orders must reflect a reasoned analysis of the invention and the technical problem it seeks to address, the Court found the Patent Office's decision to be unsustainable.
Accordingly, the court set aside the refusal order and remanded the matter to the Patent Office for fresh consideration.
Case Title: OCV Intellectual Capital LLC v. The Controller General Of Patents
Citation: 2026 LLBiz HC (CAL) 5
Case Number: IPDPTA/34/2022
For Appellant: Advocates Adarsh Ramanujan, Yamini Mookherjee, Sonal Mishra, Kaushiki Roy, Garima Mehta and Suryaneel Das
For Respondent: Advocates Swatarup Banerjee and Shankharit Chakraborty