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IP Court watchers will be pleased to know that the Delhi High Court’s IP Division has published the 2023-24 edition of its Annual Report! The second report (hereinafter referred to as ‘the report’) gives a summary of the number of cases disposed of, freshly instituted, and pending before the IPD. Praharsh had written about the first report published in April 2023. The second report seems more detailed, as it has information on various categories of IP cases as compared to the first report which mentioned only patent appeals, original patent petitions, and trademark appeals. Credit to the Law Researchers – Daanish Naithani, Arvind Menon, Bhamini Shenoy, Krishna Singh, Rahul Krishna Sharma, Mehul Sharma, and Aman Sinha who have compiled this report. This year’s report also gives exact data on the number of freshly instituted cases. However, the first report also mentioned a list of important case developments along with their brief, which has been given a miss in the second report. In any case, this is a welcome step for transparency!
Working of the IP Division
- Cases Transferred from the IPAB
The first table indicates the disposal of cases transferred from the IPAB. A total of 1977 cases across patents, copyrights and trademarks, were received from the IPAB in 2022. Between Jan, 2024 – June, 2024, of these transferred cases, as per the report the Delhi HC IPD disposed of:
- 37 patent appeals,
- 21 trademark appeals,
- 98 trademark revocation/cancellations,
- 1 patent revocation, and
- 20 copyright revocations.
These numbers are only for a 6 month period in 2024, but there seems to be a substantial dip in the disposal rates when compared to 2022 and 2023. Looking at Table 1 below, it can be seen that 37 patent appeals were disposed of in 6 months of 2024, while there was approximately 2x this amount per 6 months in 2022 (153/2=76.5 appeals per 6 months) and 2023 (143/2=71.5 appeals per 6 months). All said and done, the IPDs are still new institutions though, and it is likely we’ll see the pattern of numbers start to stabilise after a few years.
Table 1 (taken from – DHC IPD Annual Report 2023-24)
Concerning pendency, as per the report, 79 patent appeals, 46 trademark appeals, 526 trademark revocation/cancellations, 14 patent revocations, and 104 copyright revocations remain to be disposed of. The overall disposal rate for cases transferred from the IPAB till June 30, 2024, is 60.10%. This is a notable achievement given the fact that fresh matters were simultaneously being filed and heard – which takes us to the next section.
- General Trends: Fresh Filings and Disposals (Jan, 2023 – June, 2024)
In the Jan ‘23 – June ‘24 period, as per the report, 1917 fresh cases were filed and a total of 2026 cases were disposed of, showing a disposal rate higher than the fresh filing rate during this period. It is not specifically mentioned but the disposals here seem to include the cases instituted in 2022 or the pending IP cases before the establishment of IPD. The total pendency of ‘fresh filings’ as of June 2024 is at 3742 cases. As per the information in the report, this is divided as follows:
2.1 IP Commercial Suits (Jan, 2023 – June, 2024)
1152 fresh IP Commercial Suits were instituted,865 were disposed of and 2182 cases were pending.
2.2 Patent Appeals (Jan, 2023 – June, 2024)
92 fresh Patent Appeals were filed,242 appeals were disposed of and 197 cases are pending.
2.3 Trademark Appeals (Jan, 2023 – June, 2024)
88 fresh Trademark Appeals were filed,203 were disposed of and 114 cases remain pending.
2.4 Trademark Rectification Petitions (Jan, 2023 – June, 2024)
415 fresh Trademark Rectification Petitions were filed, 456 were disposed of and 943 cases remain pending.
Some Observations
1. The total number of fresh cases instituted in the period between Jan, 2023 – June, 2024 is 1917. But totalling up the cases above (IP commercial suits, patent appeals, trademark appeals, and trademark rectification petitions) gives us 1747 cases, 170 short of 1917. Are these GI and plant varieties cases, details of which seem to be missing altogether from the Report? It would have been better if the report had stated what these cases are about.
| Fresh IP Commercial Suits | Fresh Patent Appeals | Fresh Trademark Appeals | Fresh Trademark Rectifications | Total | Total Fresh Cases in the Report |
| 1152 | 92 | 88 | 415 | 1747 | 1917 |
Table 2 (information taken from – DHC IPD Annual Report 2023-24)
2. There seems to be some inconsistency in data when compared to the IPAB cases. For example – As readers can see in Table 1, 79 patent appeals remain pending from the cases transferred from the IPAB. Based on my calculation, if only 92 fresh patent appeals were filed between Jan ‘23 – June ‘24 (as per Table 3 below), a total of 171 cases would be pending (assuming none of the freshly instituted cases have been decided yet) and not 197. But then, most likely these extra cases are patent appeals filed in 2022 for which specific data is not available. Last year’s Annual Report doesn’t specify the 2022 numbers either, so this remains a best-guess.
Table 3 (taken from – DHC IPD Annual Report 2023-24)
Even though there can be some doubts or queries as far as precise data is concerned, this is a great initiative by the IPD to disclose relevant data on filings and disposals. I hope the new IPDs also take similar steps in maintaining transparency.
Additional Information in the Report
The IP Division had also organised a Colloquium for Commercial Court District Judges on Intellectual Property Rights in collaboration with the Danish Patent and Trademark Office (DKPTO). The colloquium discussed emerging topics including the evolution of the internet into Metaverse, Cryptocurrency, AI, and the challenges it poses to IPRs. The event was attended by Commercial Court Judges of Delhi and a delegation of experts and judges from Denmark.
The DHC in collaboration with WIPO organised the WIPO Master Class on Intellectual Property (IP) Adjudication. 37 experienced judges from 20 jurisdictions participated in the Master Class. The Master Class included sessions on the interplay of public health /drug regulation and patent law, biosimilars, frontier technologies, IP, and scientific evidence in emerging areas of technology, amongst others.
The Delhi High Court also hosted the International Judicial Conclave on Intellectual Property Rights which was co-hosted by the Delhi Judicial Academy, USPTO, and US Department of Justice. The event saw multiple panels on topics around IP such as – Protecting and Enforcing IP in New Digital Ecosystems, Cross Border IP Enforcement, and Criminal Remedies, and Addressing Digital Piracy and Online Counterfeiting to name a few. The panelists included judges from the Supreme Court, Indian high courts, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Hong Kong, and the US.
The colloquium and master class seem to be a great initiative for the training of judges in IP matters and also the inclusion of emerging topics that will influence the IP sphere in the future.