Delhi High Court Passes A Decree Against Maharaja Appliances For Patent Infringement, Orders It To Pay Rs.50 Lakh Damages

The Delhi High Court recently decreed a suit against Maharaja Appliances Limited, holding that it had infringed the plaintiff’s registered patent for “Liquid Heating Vessel”.

Initially, plaintiff-Strix Ltd., a manufacturer and seller of temperature control systems as well as cordless interfaces for water boiling appliances (like kettles), had filed the suit seeking permanent injunction against defendant for infringing its patent i.e. IN 192511/95 for “Liquid heating Vessels” (suit patent).

As per plaintiff’s claims, the suit patent was obtained in India in 2005, but it had begun using the invention thereunder in 2002. The suit was filed upon a discovery that the defendant was selling kettles with temperature control system identical to the plaintiff’s.

Challenging validity of the suit patent, the defendant had also filed a counter-claim. It contended that initially, it was importing heating elements from the plaintiff, but due to their inferior quality, a switch was made to a Chinese company under bona-fide belief that the company had a patent as well.

During the pendency of the proceedings, an interim injunction was granted by the court in the plaintiff’s favour.

After comparing the claims of the suit patent with the defendant’s product, Justice Prathiba M. Singh concluded that the defendant’s kettles used temperature controls that infringed the suit patent.

The court disregarded defendant’s challenge to validity of suit patent based on 3 prior art documents. It observed that out of the three documents, two (US Patent’866 and PCT Application bearing publication no. WO/1999/029140) did not constitute valid prior art.

With respect to the third document (European Patent EP0469758), the court opined that the suit patent may have been achieving the same result, but it did so through a different mechanism. Thus, the European Patent was distinguishable from the suit patent.

The defendant’s plea of non-working of the suit patent in India was also rejected, holding that the plaintiff had commercially exploited its patent by marketing in India.

The Court referred to the landmark decision by UK Court of Appeal in Gerber Garment Technology Inc. v. Lectra Systems Ltd. to highlight that if the patentee cannot prove the loss, it is permissible to assess the same on a reasonable royalty basis.

“Where the patentee is a manufacturer of the patented product, reasonable profit that the patentee would have had earned if the infringing products were in fact sold by the patentee would be reasonable measure”, it said.

Recording further that in commercial matters, actual costs must be awarded, the court passed a decree for Rs.81,44,925/- in plaintiff’s favour (Rs.50 lakhs as damages and remaining as actual costs).

No order for permanent injunction was passed as life of the patent has come to an end.

Ms. Ekta Sarin, Mr. Zeeshan Khan and Mr. Shakti Priyan Nair, Advocates appeared for Plaintiff

Case Title: Strix Ltd v. Maharaja Appliances Limited

Citation: 2023 LiveLaw (Del) 1016

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