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IN THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI

Reserved on: 1^st August, 2022

Date of decision: 14^th September, 2022

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CS (COMM) 19/2022, I.A. 504/2022&I.A.1334/2022

STERLITE TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED ..... Plaintiff

Through:

Mr. Chander Lall, Sr. Advocate with &

Mr. Ankit Arvind, Advocates.

versus

HFCL LIMITED ..... Defendant

Through:

Mr. Amit Sibal, Sr. Advocate, Ms.

Apoorva Murali, Ms. Aashish Gupta, Mr.

Shantanu Tyagi, Mr. Saksham Dhingra,

Mr. Krishna Tangirala, Mr. Luma Abbas

and Mr. Ayush Shahay Advocates.

CORAM:

JUSTICE PRATHIBA M. SINGH

JUDGMENT

Prathiba M. Singh, J.

BRIEF FACTS

1. The present is a suit filed by the Plaintiff- Sterlite Technologies Ltd. -

seeking inter alia, an injunction restraining infringement of Indian Patent No.

IN335369 (hereinafter “IN’69/suit patent”) which relates to optical fiber cables

(hereinafter “OFCs”). The Plaintiff claims to be an industry leading integrator

of digital networks providing integrated 5G ready end to end solutions ranging

from wired to wireless, design to deployment connectivity to compute through

core capabilities in Optical Interconnect, Virtualised Access Solutions, Network

Software and System Integration. The Plaintiff company was established in the

year 1988 as a copper cable manufacturing unit and thereafter in 1993 developed

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optical fiber manufacturing capabilities. The Plaintiff avers that it is engaged in

the business of telecom products and solutions, including manufacture and sale

of integrated optical fibers and OFCs and also provides cloud computing

services. As per the plaint, the Plaintiff has manufacturing facilities in India,

China, and Brazil, and software development centers in India and U.K. The

Plaintiff’s revenue as of the financial year 2020, is stated to be around Rs. 41,420

million, with offices in 16 countries and 7 global production facilities. The

detailed profile of the Plaintiff has been set out in the plaint.

2. The suit patent titled ‘OPTICAL FIBER CABLE FOR BLOWING INTO

DUCT’, has a priority date of 29^th March, 2016 and was granted on 20^th March,

2020 with the following Claims:

“1. An optical fiber cable (100) comprising:

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termite resistance.”

3. The case of the Plaintiff is that the Defendant- HFCL Limited, is a private

limited

company

engaged

in

the

business

of

manufacturing

of

telecommunication equipment, OFCs and intelligent power systems.In the first

week of June 2021, the Plaintiff was informed by one of its customers that one

of the Defendant’s OFCs are similar to the OFCs of the Plaintiff. Thereafter, the

Plaintiff came across the Defendant’s website with brochures of the Defendant

listing several products having substantial similarities to the Plaintiff’s OFC.

According to the Plaintiff, the said impugned OFCs of the Defendant violated

the Plaintiff’s exclusive rights granted under the suit patent.

4. The Plaintiff then filed the present suit seeking permanent injunction

restraining infringement of the suit patent, and consequential reliefs including

rendition of accounts, damages, delivery up, etc. An ex-parte ad-interim

injunction was granted vide order dated 12^th January, 2022. Thereafter, the

Defendant filed an application seeking vacation of the injunction, being I.A.

1334/2022, along with its written statement and its counter-claim being CC

No.11/2022 seeking revocation of the suit patent. Arguments have been heard in

the two applications i.e., seeking interim injunction under Order 39 Rules 1 & 2

CPC being I.A.504/2022, and for vacation of ex-parte injunction under Order 39

Rule 4 CPC being I.A. 1334/2022.

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