Interim injunction refused in a quia timet action under sections 48 and 108. The plaintiffs failed to make out a prima facie case, and the balance of convenience and irreparable harm did not favour them. The Court was persuaded that damages, if proved at trial, would be compensable: the plaintiffs appeared to have licensed their rights to two entities whose packaging indicated as much, though the agreements were not placed on record, and they were importing the drug into India, so they were monetising the invention.
Interim injunction granted restraining a biosimilar of Nivolumab during the pendency of the suit. The Court weighed that the patent was valid in fifty countries and had been sustained against challenge in thirty, that it had been granted only after fourteen years, which itself shortened the limited monopoly, that a pre-grant opposition by an association of which the defendant is a member had been rejected, and that the defendant had been under injunction for more than a year and had no manufacturing licence until December 2024.
Refusal of a heater assembly for generating aerosol under section 3(b) set aside, in the fullest treatment of that provision in this corpus. The Court held that a preconceived and subjective notion that all tobacco products cause serious prejudice to human life and health, unsupported by scientific or technical evidence, is unsustainable, and that the finding of conflict with public order and morality was unreasoned, cryptic and baseless. Observing that the interaction of patent law and ethics has always produced difficulties, it held that section 3(b) ought not to be interpreted to address all subjective concerns of morality, public order or health without scientific or technical evidence or cogent reasoning. Reliance on Article 47 of the Constitution was misplaced: neither the Directive Principles nor Article 14 have a role in adjudicating the validity of an invention, and in going down that road the Controller misjudged the role of the Patent Office. Section 83(e) was also misread as if grant would itself commercialise the product and affect public health. Separately, reliance on three documents that appeared in neither the First Examination Report nor the hearing notices was held a serious procedural infirmity violating natural justice.
A rare outcome in this corpus: a patent held valid and infringed after full trial, with the suit decreed. The judgment is equally notable for costs, the Court holding that parties carrying commercial litigation must weigh the consequences of an unfavourable result and that mindless appeals should not be the rule, and awarding full commercial costs under the Commercial Courts Act in a suit instituted in 2013 that had run over a decade with the patent expiring during its pendency.
Interim injunction refused in a patent infringement suit over a weedicidal formulation. The Court took the prima facie view that the dyeing agent or pigment could not be treated as a non-essential element of the suit patent, the plaintiff having itself highlighted the advantages derived from its presence, so no prima facie case of infringement was made out. Having so found, it declined to examine validity, which the defendants had attacked by counterclaim, holding that at an interim stage the Court takes a prima facie view and is not required to resolve contested issues of fact, as that would convert the hearing into a mini-trial.
Three suits on the DVD standard essential patent decreed and all counter-claims dismissed. The revocation grounds failed: section 64(1)(m) on non-disclosure of corresponding foreign applications under section 8, section 64(1)(e) on prior public knowledge and use, and section 64(1)(j) on suppression and fraud across the parent and divisional applications. Damages were awarded, including additional damages of one crore rupees against two defendants, with full commercial costs on the Uflex principle. The Court recorded that the defendants had altered their defences at different stages and used delay until the patent lapsed, which reduced the patentee to monetary relief alone. A certificate of validity was directed under section 113.
