Delay in adjudication is not new in India. Unnecessary delays through misuse of procedural complexities often tends to delay the dispensation of justice. Efficient adjudication and resolution of disputes are pivotal to any developed judicial system. These reinforce trust in the judicial set up of a country, thereby, facilitating effective commercial partnerships globally. In this backdrop, the Indian parliament enacted the Commercial Courts Act, 2015 (“Act”), with the aim to provide a procedural framework that leads to expeditious resolution of commercial disputes. Section 2(1)(c) of the Act provides for an exhaustive definition of “commercial disputes”, which includes, among other things, disputes arising out of intellectual property rights (“IPR”) relating to registered and unregistered trademarks, copyright, patent, design, domain names, geographical indications, and semiconductor-integrated circuits. Thus, IPR disputes are commercial disputes [1].
With certain amendments, Section 16 of the Act makes the Civil Procedure Code, 1908 (“Code”), applicable to commercial disputes. Order XI of the Code, as applicable to the Act, provides for disclosure, discovery, and inspection of documents in a suit pertaining to a commercial dispute. Rule 2 therein provides for discovery by interrogatories. The purpose of this provision is to ensure bringing all relevant information for the proper adjudication of the dispute to the court’s notice. It also provides internal safeguards to ensure that an application for discovery by interrogatories is not vexatious, scandalous, irrelevant, unreasonable, etc. Thus, it vests the court with enough power to safeguard the interests of the party from whom answers to interrogatories are sought.
In patent suits relating to inventions, technical advancements, etc., disclosure through interrogatories may often lead to the disclosure of confidential and business sensitive information. Often the party from whom the discovery is sought raises this defence. The courts have repeatedly settled the law on such objections. Recently, the High Court of Delhi (“Delhi HC”) in Largan Precision Co Ltd. v. Motorola Mobility India Pvt Ltd (“Largan Case”) [2] reiterated the law on the scope of interrogatories, the obligations of parties, and the defence of confidentiality pleaded by the defendant therein.
This blog summarises the Delhi HC’s observations in the Largan Case and argues that the Delhi HC has laid down a consistent jurisprudence in such issues. It ends with providing the possible recourses that the parties and practitioners can take while seeking/opposing an application for discovery by interrogatories in patent infringement suits.
The Largan Case was filed seeking relief of permanent injunction restraining the Defendants from infringing the Plaintiff’s Indian patent. The said patent pertained to a component of the mobile phone’s inbuilt camera system, which is used to block or minimise lens flare-causing undesired stray light. Thereafter, the Plaintiff had also filed an interim application seeking interrogatories relating to manufacture, import, sale, revenue, suppliers, etc., of the allegedly infringing products of the Defendants. Importantly, the interrogatories were filed by the Plaintiff along with the suit itself.
The Defendants initially furnished certain information with respect to the interrogatories, but the Delhi HC later directed them to provide in a sealed cover all information relating to the product launch, technical specifications, and the supplier. Although the Defendants complied with the direction, they prayed that the court not disclose such information to the Plaintiff because it contained confidential data. Notably, the Defendants also argued that they had not even filed their defence when the Plaintiff had sought the interrogatories. Moreover, placing reliance on Section 106 of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023, which provides that the burden of proof on any particular fact lay with the person who wants the court to believe in its existence, the Defendants argued that it was up to the Plaintiff to prove their case instead of seeking interrogatories from them.