STERLITE TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED Vs. HFCL LIMITED

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The present is a suit filed by the Plaintiff-Sterlite Technologies Ltd. - seeking inter alia, an injunction restraining infringement of Indian Patent No. IN335369 (hereinafter "IN'69/suit patent") which relates to optical fiber cables (hereinafter "OFCs"). The Plaintiff claims to be an industry leading integrator of digital networks providing integrated 5G ready end to end solutions ranging from wired to wireless, design to deployment connectivity to compute through core capabilities in Optical Interconnect, Virtualised Access Solutions, Network Software and System Integration. The Plaintiff company was established in the year 1988 as a copper cable manufacturing unit and thereafter in 1993 developed optical fiber manufacturing capabilities. The Plaintiff avers that it is engaged in the business of telecom products and solutions, including manufacture and sale of integrated optical fibers and OFCs and also provides cloud computing services. As per the plaint, the Plaintiff has manufacturing facilities in India, China, and Brazil, and software development centers in India and U.K. The Plaintiff's revenue as of the financial year 2020, is stated to be around Rs.41,420.00 million, with offices in 16 countries and 7 global production facilities. The detailed profile of the Plaintiff has been set out in the plaint.

(2.) The suit patent titled 'OPTICAL FIBER CABLE FOR BLOWING INTO DUCT', has a priority date of 29/3/2016 and was granted on 20/3/2020 with the following Claims:

(3.) The case of the Plaintiff is that the Defendant-HFCL Limited, is a private limited company engaged in the business of manufacturing of telecommunication equipment, OFCs and intelligent power systems. In the first week of June 2021, the Plaintiff was informed by one of its customers that one of the Defendant's OFCs are similar to the OFCs of the Plaintiff. Thereafter, the Plaintiff came across the Defendant's website with brochures of the Defendant listing several products having substantial similarities to the Plaintiff's OFC. According to the Plaintiff, the said impugned OFCs of the Defendant violated the Plaintiff's exclusive rights granted under the suit patent.