PATENT INFRINGEMENT CASES IN INDIA

The breach of the exclusive rights of the patent holder is termed as patent infringement. The government accords the exclusive rights to an investor over his invention for a restricted period of time. In other words, a person is accountable for patent infringement if he utilizes the exclusive right of the patent holder without the patent owner’s permission.

Patent May 21, 2021 0 Add to Reading List

INTRODUCTION –

The breach of the exclusive rights of the patent holder is termed as patent infringement. The government accords the exclusive rights to an investor over his invention for a restricted period of time. In other words, a person is accountable for patent infringement if he utilizes the exclusive right of the patent holder without the patent owner’s permission.

The rules related to patent infringement are given under Section 104 -114 of the Patents Act, 1970. The following acts are said to be infringement, when performed without the permission of the patentee –

Making, utilizing, offering for sale, selling, importing the patented product.
Utilizing the patented procedure, or utilizing, offering for sale, selling or importing the goods directly acquired by the procedure.

A patent holder can get an authorization, if required, in the form of a license. Patents intended to be defensive and in any country infringement is only possible where a patent is compelled upon.

TYPES OF INFRINGEMENT –

There are two types of infringement as given below –

Direct Infringement
Indirect Infringement

Direct Infringement – It happens when a product is almost similar to any patented product or it happens in the case where, without the consent of the owner, owner’s creation is carried out for selling or commercial use.

Indirect Infringement – It happens when some quantity of deceit or fortuitous infringement occurs without any aim of infringement.

Whenever monopoly rights of the patentee are violated, the rights of the patentee are safeguarded by the Act through Judicial intervention. The patentee has to file a suit for infringement. The remedies which may be availed in such cases are –

1. Interlocutory/ interim injunction

2. Damages or account of profits

3. Permanent injunction

CASE LAWS –

Vringo vs. Asus

In Delhi High Court Vringo filed a patent infringement case against AsusTek Computer Inc. in April 2014. According to the public news provided by Vringo to its investors, Vringo has claimed the infringement of patent IN223183 legal rights by Asus in India for procedure and system for supplying wireless communication utilizing a context for message compression.

Asus had asserted that in relevant of IN223183, Google issued license for utilizing technology. And Google had filed a plea to be a party to the proceedings in August 2014.

Vringo had appealed a judicial order restraining Asus from continuing use of the technology in India. The appeal has not been allowed yet.

Ericsson vs. Xiaomi

In India, Ericsson had filed a case against Xiaomi in December 2104, for the infringement of the 8 standard required patents. The Delhi High Court allowed an ex – parte injunction on the sale, produce, commercial and import of Xiaomi’s devices.

Xiaomi stated that as of December 2014 its newest devices in the Indian market – Mi3, Redmi1s, and Redmi Note 4G, holds Qualcomm chipsets, got licensed by Ericsson for implemented technologies. Xiaomi later challenged the injunction before a Division Bench of the Delhi High Court, which issued temporary orders to allow Xiaomi to restart the sale, produce, commercial and import phones only after applying the following conditions –

The devices having Qualcomm chips can only be sold by Xiaomi.
Xiaomi will deposit Rs 100 as royalty for each and every device which is imported to India from the date of the launch of device in India to January 5, 2015. The amount was kept as fixed deposit throughout the proceeding of the case for three months.

BAJAJ Auto Limited vs. TVS Motor Company Limited

This case has two sides –

Related to patent infringement.
Related to the quick disposal of intellectual property rights.

In this case BAJAJ Auto Limited filed a case in 2007 before Madras High Court against TVS Motor Company Limited for patent infringement and asked for a permanent injunction under Section 108 of the act. BAJAJ Auto Limited also asked for a temporary injunction during the case for permanent injunction was pending in the High Court. At the same time TVS Motor Company Limited also filed case against BAJAJ Auto Limited under Section 106, saying that the infringement claim was groundless.

The high court allowed the BAJAJ Auto Limited temporary injunction and ordered TVS Motor Company Limited that they cannot accept any new order for vehicles using the technology but can carry out the pending orders.

Final Judgement for the Patent Infringement -

The Madras High Court lastly held that BAJAJ Auto Limited has been utilizing the technology for five years and has the patent right on the technology. The high court used the Doctrine of Equivalence and said that, it is also understandable according to the judgement for the motive of choosing the novel characteristics to constitute pith and marrow a purposive construction has to be specified in order to make it important need of the invention that any variant would follow outside the monopoly.

CONCLUSION -

Patent infringement is happening ordinarily mainly in the pharmaceutical industry. Pharmaceutical companies are all the times on their toes with their patent cases. But the idea of the patent infringement rises and expands with each and every case. The few cases mentioned above have formed the understanding of the patent infringement right now. Whereas in most cases, like Bayers vs Natco, the court held that the public interest is more important, but in the case Bristol Myres and Indoco, the court held that just because the public interest in more important, it cannot be misapply to get away patent infringement. The Doctrine of Equivalence used in Indian cases, has a very diverse approach and its viewpoint is still not understandable. Court utilizes it and interprets it in different methods.

Overall, patent infringement is a very essential feature for many companies’ mainly pharmaceutical and technical companies. In general courts concludes patent infringement cases on the base of three parameters - prima facie case, balance of convenience and irreparable loss to the person seeking interim injunction and the fourth parameter is public interest. The cases mentioned above manifest us how patent infringement is interpreted amongst all these parameters and deal with many matters like injunction, direct infringement discord of jurisdictions etc.

REFERENCES -