26th August
The Delhi High Court has held that it is not possible to apply an across the board approach to all cases of alleged infringement of patent, particularly pharmaceutical patent, where as a matter of routine at first hearing there would be grant of injunction.
The Court was of the view that the law concerning patent infringement under the Patents Act 1970 and other related legislation has peculiar elements that would have to be kept in view by the Court.
It reiterated that reading of the interim order should indicate forming of opinion by the Court based on strong prima facie case, balance of convenience and irreparable hardship and the additional features if the case involves a pharmaceutical patent.
It held that it is not the length of the order or its precise wording that matters, but that the factors must be discernible from the order which concludes one way or the other on grant of an interim injunction.
Observing that the impugned order of the Single Judge which restrained the Defendant from infringing the suit patent did not lend itself to sufficient clarity, the Division Bench of the High Court in Natco Pharma Ltd. v. Baer Healthcare LLC remanded the case for a fresh order uninfluenced by the judgement in Sterlite Technologies v. ZTT India.
It observed that no opinion was formed by the Single Judge in its impugned order, of the Plaintiff having made out a prima facie case in its favour for grant of an interim injunction.