CTR MANUFACTURING INDUSTRIES LIMITED Vs. SERGI TRANSFORMER EXPLOSION PREVENTION TECHNOLOGIES PVT. LTD. AND ORS.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) INTRODUCTION

(2.) This is an action in patent infringement. The Plaintiff ("CTR") says it has an Indian Patent No. 202302 granted on 3rd August 2006 with a priority date of 16th November 2005 for an explosion and fire detection technology for use in electrical transformers. The patent is described as "A SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR PREVENTING AND/OR DETECTING EXPLOSION AND/OR FIRE OF ELECTRICAL TRANSFORMERS". The 1st Defendant ("Sergi") is the only contestant; and in this judgment, I use the word 'Defendant' to mean only the 1st Defendant. The 2nd Defendant is Sergi's distributor and agent, and the 3rd Defendant, a manufacturer of electrical transformers, is a purchaser of the systems manufactured by either CTR or Sergi.<SLINK_NO>1</SLINK_NO> CTR claims that Sergi's product, the SERGI 3000, is an infringement. Sergi says it is no such thing, and its product uses a different technology. Sergi claims it has a license to manufacture fire systems in accordance with Indian Patent No.189089 granted on 14th December 2002 to one Phillipe Magnier, whose son Antoine is now Sergi's Managing Director. CTR says that Sergi's attempt to exploit this licensed patent was a commercial failure, and what Sergi now does is to infringe CTR's Patent. Of course, Sergi denies all this. There is no infringement, it says; the two products are not the same. They differ in many ways, but at least in one crucial element and that is enough to dislodge CTR's claim. Sergi also questions CTR's claim to a patent in the first place: it has filed a Counter-Claim here and, in the Patent Office, a post-grant opposition to CTR's Patent. There is also said to be a pre-grant opposition yet pending, and, in addition, there is Sergi's Revocation Application before the Intellectual Property Appellate Board. The patent to which CTR lays claim, Sergi says, was incapable of being granted: everything it claims was known in the prior art, including by CTR's own publications. Sergi also says that CTR's plaint is deliberately deceptive and contains crucial omissions. These could not have been accidental, Sergi claims; they were deliberate and they were studied, designed to persuade a court to grant an ad-interim injunction when, had the necessary material been placed, no such order could have been made.

(3.) The suit was originally filed before the Thane District Court in 2010 as Suit No. 1 of 2010. A Counter-Claim having been filed, it was then transferred to this Court in view of the proviso to Section 104 of the Patents Act, 1970. On that transfer, it was renumbered as Suit No. 448 of 2012. As it stands today, the record before me, the bulk of it digitized, is enormous: by my reckoning, the digital record is nearly 15,000 pages, very possibly more. In addition there are compilations and documents tendered during the arguments that ran, albeit sporadically, between January and March 2015 when I heard Mr. Seervai for CTR and Mr. Chagla for Sergi. During the hearings, I was also treated to some visual depictions and even an animation in a seemingly unstoppable loop, more annoying than helpful. Unfortunately, not all this material is sufficiently wellorganized in the record: there are additional compilations, additional affidavits, incessant renumbering of pages and so on. To the extent that I was able, I have attempted to provide accurate crossreferences.