The burden of proof in case of a process patent is dealt in section 104a of the Patents Act, 1970, which provides that “in any suit for patent infringement related to a technique for acquiring a product, the court docket may direct the defendant to show that the procedure used by him to gain the product, identical to the manufactured from the patented manner, isn't like the patented manner.” in Communications Component Antenna Inc v Ace Technologies corp and ors, the Delhi High Court lately held that if the defendant withholds its excellent and without difficulty available proof, an unfavourable inference can be drawn in opposition to it. The court stated that “in a patent infringement action, as soon as the plaintiff, prima facie establishes infringement, the onus shifts on the defendants, to disprove the identical. The complete silence via the defendants shows that there's, in truth, withholding of applicable and crucial data from the court docket”.
In every other latest case, Shogun Organics Ltd v. Gaur Hari Guchhait and ors, the identical court, in addition, ruled at the burden of proof. Shogun organics, an employer engaged within the research, manufacture, and sale of mosquito repellent applied for an everlasting injunction restraining the defendants from infringing its method patent. The patent related to the manufacture of an insecticide. The plaintiffs bought base fabric from the defendants however hooked up that, after the grant of the patent the defendants sold their product with the addition of numerous compounds and content precise to the plaintiff’s patented method. The onus consequently shifted to the defendants to show that the manner adopted with the aid of them become exclusive from the patented manner.
The defendants had either to reveal their system and spotlight the differences from the patented procedure or to show that the product received from the defendant’s procedure as though its fabric but had extraordinary properties of reactants or components. Each aspect relied upon registration in their respective merchandise with the significant pesticides board and registration committee. The plaintiff attempted to show thereby that its patent had novelty and the defendants argued that registration showed that the process becomes within the public domain. The court docket held, but, that such registration became inappropriate in patent disputes. The defendants adduced no proof. The court docket drew the negative inference against them and held the defendants to have infringed the patent.
Ascertaining how the procedure patent has been infringed without understanding the method of the infringer poses an extensive challenge to the patentee. Fortuitously, in the case of manner patents, the weight of evidence shifts to the defendant if the patentee proves that the infringed product is identical to the product without delay acquired by the patented method. The law prescribes no unique way to expose that two merchandise are identical, but process patent infringement cases display that courts are persuaded by evidence of the same composition and empirical information relating to the products.