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The Madras High Court has ordered reconstitution of the Opposition Board in a challenge made by Tata Motors Limited to a patent being held by Ashok Leyland Limited for a product titled ‘Multi-Axle Vehicle Configuration having Heavy Duty Lift Axle’ since 2016.
A Division Bench of Justices M. Sundar and K. Govindarajan Thilakavadi set aside a single judge’s order dismissing Ashok Leyland’s writ petition and directed the Controller of Patents and Designs in Chennai to reconstitute the Opposition Board within a fortnight.
Disposing of a writ appeal filed by Leyland, the Bench also ordered that the Opposition Board must conduct a de novo exercise of appreciating the documents and evidences from both sides before submitting its recommendation to the Controller by May 22.
The orders in the writ appeal were passed with the consent of the counsel representing TATA Motors which had originally opposed Leyland’s plea for reconstitution of the Opposition Board before the single judge in the intellectual property division of the High Court.
The appellant’s counsel M.S. Bharath told the Bench that Tata Motors had raised an opposition to his client’s patent under Section 25(2) of the Patents Act, 1970. The thought opposition had been raised on multiple grounds such as lack of novelty, product not falling under the definition of invention and so on.
While Tata Motors relied upon evidences of two experts Anoop Chawla and Amit Kumar Gupta in support of its opposition to the patent, Ashok Leyland filed a reply statement by relying upon evidences of two other experts S. Ramamurthy and Sathya Prasad Mangalaramanan.
The Controller constituted an Opposition Board and the latter came up with its recommendation on October 31, 2023. However, Ashok Leyland found the Board to have not considered the evidences in their proper perspective and therefore approached the High Court for reconstitution.
The company contended that if the Controller gets swayed on the basis of an incomplete recommendation of the Opposition Board, it would have an adverse economic ramification affecting the balance sheet especially when the invention had enabled it to produce a turnover of ₹6,600 crore.
However, the single judge dismissed the writ petition for reconstitution of the Opposition Board on March 15 after doubting as to how far the High Court would be able to interfere with the recommendations of the Opposition Board by exercising its power of judicial review.
Mr. Bharath contended that the powers of the High Court could not be doubted when it comes to reviewing the procedures adopted by the Opposition Board before making its recommendation and his argument found favour with the Division Bench led by Justice Sundar.
“We make it clear that judicial review qua procedure to be followed by said Board is an aspect which this constitutional court is not denuded of and we deem it appropriate to answer the larger question propounded by the honourable single judge in this manner,” the Bench wrote.
