Article
Delhi High Court expounds on Doctrine of Equivalence and parallel import under patent law
By Vindhya S. Mani
The article discusses elaborately the recent decision of the Delhi High Court where the Court applied the concept of Doctrine of Equivalence to arrive at the finding of a prima facie case of infringement and also dismissed the exemption of parallel import under Section 107A(b) of the Patents Act, 1970 (‘Act’). Relying on the experts’ report, the Court narrowed the controversy to ascertaining whether the two missing elements were so essential that their absence would disentitle the Plaintiff to an injunction. It relied on the Doctrine of Equivalence to examine if the substituted element in the infringing product does the same work, in substantially the same way, to accomplish substantially the same result. On Section 107A(b), the Court was of the view that the term ‘patented product’ , in the light of the definitions of ‘patented article’ , ‘patent’ and ‘invention’ , would include only those products which are patented under the Indian Patents regime. The author states that the instant case has brought to the fore concepts in patent law that Indian Courts have not examined yet, in much detail. According to her, this decision is an indication that Indian Courts, especially the Delhi High Court with the newly constituted IP Division is set to augment the patent law jurisprudence in India by tackling more nuanced issues and concepts...
Statute Update
- Delhi High Court notifies Intellectual Property Rights Division Rules
- Delhi High Court notifies Rules governing patent suits
Ratio decidendi
- Copyrights – Difference in number of horses would not make a qualitative difference to allow registration as original artistic work – Delhi High Court
- Trademark ‘CASINOS PRIDE’ not infringes marks ‘BLENDERS PRIDE’ and ‘IMPERIAL BLUE’ but there is prima facie case of passing off – Delhi High Court
- Ex-parte ad-interim injunction against unknown persons not permissible – Delhi High Court
News Nuggets
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- IPD suits – No separate application required for exemption from entering pre-institution mediation when urgent interim relief sought
