Recently, the Hon'ble Bombay High Court in CTP Environment S.A.S vs. Santro Technologies Ltd. & Ors. was pleased to grant ad-interim reliefs in favour of the Plaintiff restraining the Defendants from using a process that was identical with and/or substantially similar to the process patent of the Plaintiff in India. A copy of the order can be found here.

Facts

The Plaintiff is a French company and the Defendant No.1 is an Israeli company having its office in Mumbai and the Defendant No.2 is a majority shareholder of the Defendant No.1. The Plaintiff has registered a process Patent No. 236532 relating to a novel method of cleaning furnaces 'online' i.e. without completely shutting down the furnace as the earlier technologies were usable only when the furnace was completely offline. The Defendants are providing similar services of cleaning furnaces online whose process is alleged to be identical with or substantially similar to the Plaintiff's patent which is an infringement of the Plaintiff's said process patent.

Issue

Whether the process used by the Defendants is identical with or substantially similar to the Plaintiff's patent and thus, amounting to infringement of the Plaintiff's Patent?

Plaintiff's Contention

Plaintiff contended that the Defendant No.1 through its website is offering competing and infringing services which is identical with and/or substantially similar to the Plaintiff's patent. The brochures and other advertising material used by the Defendants also appear to be similar to the Plaintiff's patent. Plaintiff further relied upon an expert opinion of Dr. C.S. Mathpathi, an Assistant Professor in Department of Chemical Engineering at Institute of Chemical Technology, Mumbai, who in unequivocal terms concluded that there is a high likelihood that Defendants' process is same or substantially similar to the Plaintiff's patent.

Judgment

The Plaintiff's application for grant of urgent ad-interim reliefs was heard ex-parte as the Defendants failed to appear at the time of hearing in spite of being served with a notice. The Hon'ble Court upon hearing the Plaintiff and on the basis of expert opinion of Dr. C.S. Mathpathi, held that prima facie the process used by the Defendants is identical with and/or substantially similar to the Plaintiff's patented process and thus, restrained the Defendants from using the infringing process or using, offering for sale, selling or importing for those purposes the product obtained directly by that process or any such, further and / or any other process similar to the said patent of the Plaintiff in India.

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