The Delhi High Court has dismissed the application for the grant of an interim injunction, finding absence of prima facie case of infringement of the suit patent titled ‘A Communication Device Finder System’ by the defendant in using its ‘Find Device’ feature in its products (mobile devices, tablets, etc.) The Court in Conqueror Innovations Private Limited & Anr. v. Xiaomi Technology India Private Limited also noted that the balance of convenience was also in favour of the defendant as their products were being sold in India since 2014. The defendant was represented by Lakshmikumaran & Sridharan Attorneys here.
Considering the complete specification of the suit patent along with the claims, including the characteristic features of the suit patent and the defendant’s product, the Court noted that ‘Find Device’ feature in the defendant’s devices becomes inoperable if an unauthorised person resets the device to its factory settings, while the ‘security activation element’ in the suit patent cannot be deleted or deactivated and the communication with the communication device cannot be lost. The Court in this regard also noted that once a password of the defendant’s device is compromised, any unauthorised person can perform the factory reset. It was also observed that features like ‘auto answer mode’ and the flash memory for reinstalling the data related to the ‘security activation element’, were the essential elements of the suit patent (as they addressed the problems identified in the prior arts) and were absent in the defendant’s devices.
Further, observing that the intent of the defendant’s ‘Find Device’ feature was not to monitor the device, as claimed in the suit patent, but to protect the data from falling in wrong hands, the Court was also of the view that there was a functional difference between the ‘Find Device’ feature of the defendant’s device and the communication device finder system covered in the suit patent. Observing that the plaintiffs failed to establish a prima facie case of infringement of the independent claim, the Court was also of the view that there cannot be any infringement of the dependent claims.
On non-working of the suit patent, the Court perused Forms-27 filed by the plaintiffs before the Patent Office, according to which the invention (subject matter of the suit patent) was worked in India only to a limited extent. Relying upon Division Bench judgement in Franz Xaver Huemer v. New Yash Engineers, the Court held that the fact that the suit patent has hardly been worked in India would also be one of the factors for refusing the grant of an interim injunction in favour of the plaintiffs.
Lastly, on the delay in filing the suit, the Court noted that the suit patent was granted on 28 December 2010, and that the defendant was selling its devices with the impugned ‘Find Device’ feature in India since 2014. The High Court also noted that in Form 27 filed before the Patent Office in April 2015, the plaintiff had acknowledged its awareness of several global smartphone manufacturers allegedly infringing the suit patent. The Court hence did not accept the submission of the plaintiffs that they became aware of infringing devices only in January 2023.