HC lifts stay against TVS on ?Flame?

Two-wheeler major TVS Motor Company has won the months long legal battle against Bajaj Auto over using the twin spark plug internal combustion engine technology for its 125CC ?Flame?. On Monday, the Madras High Court set aside an interim injunction restraining TVS from manufacturing and marketing two wheelers using the technology.

Details of the case entail an appeal filed by TVS against a single Judge?s interim injunction in February 2008 on a petition filed by Bajaj with a division bench comprising Justices S J Mukhopadhaya and F M Ibrahim Kallifulla. The Division Bench held that merely because prima facie Bajaj Auto Limited was having a valid patent that by itself would not mean that Bajaj Auto had made out a strong prima facie case of infringement against the TVS Motor Company. TVS has been a licencee of patent dated May 25, 2000 and Bajaj held the patent as of July 16, 2002.

The judges said that once an invention got the seal of approval by the patent?s authority, it would have to be recognised. Noting that Bajaj had improved internal combustion working on the four-stroke principle with two spark plugs and two valve configurations, the bench said the TVS invention of four stroke internal combustion engine with at least two inlet valves and one exhaust valve, also with twin plug configuration was entitled to be recognised with equal protection of the Patents Act.

The Judges also said a court should not grant interim injunctions in cases where revocation petitions were pending ?on the grounds of prior art obviousness and other formidable grounds under Section 64 of Patents Act.?

Bajaj Auto had claimed a registered patent involving the twin spark plug technology and that TVS Motor had infringed Bajaj?s patented twin spark plug technology. The Court in its order observed that there was a difference between the three valve configuration of TVS Motor Company and the two valve configuration of Bajaj Auto Limited. That the combustion process of TVS Motor Company was not exclusively based on the twin plug operation but was based on the three valve configuration patented by AVL GMBH of Austria licence to TVS Motor Company to use its technology.

The bench further held that prima facie the product manufactured by TVS Motor has a distinctive feature, which is different from that of Bajaj?s patent. Accordingly the Division bench set aside the order of the Single judge and discontinued the injunction granted by him.