JUDGMENT :

K.A. Puj, J.

The appellants/original plaintiffs have filed this Appeal against the order and judgment dated 21.8.2007 of the learned Single Judge of this Court passed in Injunction Application in Civil Suit No. 1 of 2007 in its original jurisdiction, rejecting the Interim Application for injunction and consequently vacating the temporary injunction granted by the learned City Civil Judge, Ahmedabad in Regular Civil Suit prior to its transfer to this Court.

2. The factual matrix giving rise to the present Appeal are that the appellant after intensive research, development and incurring huge expenses, invented the invention viz. "Polyvinyl Chloride threaded pipe joint system with coupler and wire locking device comprising two pipe joining components, two sealing rings, including a wire lock, the said wire lock is component being inserted into the groove which locks the coupler with the one end of the pipe joint, the said coupler joining both the ends using the threads, the said threads are made in the form of square type threads and the said sealing rings are fixed to both the ends of the pipes and coupler". The Patent Office in India, after following the entire rigorous procedure under the Patents Act right from application, publication of application, report by examiner and its consideration by controller, inviting objections, if any, etc has duly granted Patent in favour of the appellant No. 1. The inventor has assigned the rights under the said patent in favour of the appellant No. 1 and the appellant No. 2 is the licensee of appellant No. 1.

3. It is the case of the appellant that the appellant learnt through one advertisement published in Gujarati daily, 'Gujarat Samachar' dated 5.6.2007 that the identical product described as "first kind of PVC Wire Lock System in the world" is being produced and marketed by respondent No. 2 through its distributor: respondent No. 1. The appellant therefore asked its representative to collect the product of respondent No. 2 from the respondent No. 1. The appellant thereby came to know that the respondents have illegally copied the patented product of the appellant. The appellants were, therefore, constrained to file Suit being Regular Civil Suit No. 1432 of 2007 in the Court of learned City Civil Judge, Ahmedabad under the provisions of the Patents Act. The appellants also filed application for interim injunction under the provisions of Order 39 Rule 1 and 2 of Civil Procedure Code. The learned City Civil Judge, Ahmedabad vide his order dated 2.7.2007 granted ex-parte ad-interim relief in favour of the appellants.

4. On service of summons, the respondents appeared and filed reply as well as counter claim for revocation of patent. As per the provisions contained under Section 104 of the Patent Act, the entire suit proceedings were, therefore, transferred to this Court and the suit is renumbered as Civil Suit No. 1 of 2007. While transferring the suit, interim relief granted earlier was extended and the same was again extended from time to time by this Court till the impugned order is passed by the learned Single Judge of this Court.

5. The case of the appellants in the Civil Suit is that the appellants with the intention to obtain patent in other countries filed PCT application for ascertaining the prior art in such jurisdictions. Since the grant of patent is territorial in nature the PCT helps the applicant to ascertain the advisability of going for national phase of patent grant procedure. In this background the appellant No. 2 made one common PCT Application which was filed with Indian Patent Office by specifying US Patent Office and Austrian Patent Office as two International Search Authorities. The applications were apparently forwarded to the nominated search authorities. On 30.7.2004 Austrian Patent Office in the capacity of International Search Authority sent communication to the Receiving Office about the fact of non receipt of 16 drawings which were part of the PTC Applicati