Mediation clause can’t block urgent IPR suits, SC rules

When imitation masquerades as innovation, it sows confusion among consumers, taints the marketplace and diminishes faith in the sanctity of trade, the Supreme Court has underlined, ruling that courts cannot insist on pre-litigation mediation in intellectual property infringement cases where the injury is continuing and deception of the public is involved.

- Utkarsh Anand

Holding that urgency in such cases must be judged in light of the ongoing injury and the public interest in preventing deception, a bench of justices Sanjay Kumar and Alok Aradhe said that a mere delay in filing a suit does not dilute the urgency if the infringement persists. “Urgency does not lie in the age of the cause but in the persistence of the peril,” the court held in its ruling on Monday.

It added: “The court cannot be unmindful of the fact that intellectual property rights (IPR) disputes are not confined to the private realm... the public interest element, need to prevent confusion in the market and to protect ‘consumers from deception further imparts a colour of immediacy to the reliefs sought.”