TVS-Bajaj Patent Dispute: When Will the Joint Trial Begin?

Following is a timeline of the TVS-Bajaj twin-spark plug patent dispute which is pending before the Madras High Court:

1. TVS filed a suit, C.S.No.979/2007, before the Madras High Court against Bajaj Auto Limited on grounds that Bajajs threats of infringement of its patent IN195904 by TVS were groundless. TVS also sought a declaratory judgment that its 125CC bike Flame did not infringe Bajajs patent. An interim relief was sought to restrain Bajaj from interfering with the manufacture and sale of Flame. 2. Bajaj filed a suit, C.S.No.1111/2007, before the Madras High Court against TVS for infringement of its patent IN195904. Among other reliefs, an interim injunction was also sought. 3. 19.12.2007- Single Judge of Madras High Court restrained TVS from booking any further orders with the liberty to execute orders which had already been received. 4. 20.12.2007- TVS appealed and a Division Bench (DB) of Madras High Court set aside the Single Judges order 5. 18.01.2008- Bajaj filed Special Leave Petition (SLP) before the Supreme Court. SC set aside the Division Benchs order and permitted sale of TVSs bikes booked until 18.01.2008. However, according to the SC, no further bookings were to be received by TVS until 28.01.2008. Also, SC directed the Single Judge of Madras HC to take up hearing of interim applications on 29.01.2008. 6. 29.01.2008- Madras HC Single Judge commenced hearing. TVS undertook to not receive any further booking in respect of Flame. Matter gets listed for hearing on 30.01.2008 7. Hearing commenced on 30.01.2008. 8. February 16, 2008- Madras HC Single Judge issued an interim injunction against TVS in favour of Bajaj 9. TVS appealed to a Division Bench of the High Court and on May 18, 2009, DB vacated the interim injunction and ordered expedited trial in the matter 10. Against the order of the DB, Bajaj filed an SLP before the Supreme Court. On September 16, 2009, SC chose not to interfere with the Madras DBs order and directed expedited trial. Also, the Single Judge of Madras HC was directed to dispose off the suit by November 30, 2009. 11. November 25, 2009- Issues were framed by the Single Judge of Mad HC 12. March 10, 2010- Single Judge of Madras HC ordered Bajaj to prove its case first. 13. October 4, 2010- Bajaj again appealed to the DB against the order dated March 10, 2010. In the appeal, the DB of Madras HC ordered TVS to prove its case first since it was the first party to file C.S.No.979 of 2007. In other words, since it was the plaintiff in the suit for groundless threats of infringement (which was filed first), the onus was on TVS to prove non-infringement of Bajajs patent. Therefore, TVS had to first lead evidence of non-infringement. 14. September 21, 2011- TVSs application under Order 18, Rule 3 of the Code of Civil Procedure and application for joint trial were allowed by the Single Judge of the Madras HC. According to the Supreme Courts order of September 16, 2009, the suits were to be disposed off by November 30, 2009. After the last order of September 21, 2011, I am not sure if any more orders were passed in the matter. The Madras HCs official website too does not seem to contain a list of orders passed in the matter after September 2011.

One hopes the joint trial in this matter commences soon because it would be interesting to see an Indian Court apply the law in a non-pharma patent trial.

News Source: Bloomberg Category: EV/Plug-in, Tesla Motors, UK Tags: bbc, british court, electric vehicle, ev range, new york times, roadster, tesla model s, tesla motors, top gear, uk Add a Comment

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Wow. Top Gear is great fun when their antics amplify some attribute of a car. When they go over the top (so to speak), their shtick sometimes gets silly and boring. IMHO. The guys get busy being oh so full of themselves and so funny with each other that the car is left out, or, worse, is portrayed as a caricature of itself (their subject IS motor vehicles, right?). I just saw this story. To me, a senior citizen gear-head, it isn't funny. In a rather transparent attempt to unfairly denigrate the Roadster as not ready for the real world, Top Gear intentionally misrepresented the product. Ha ha, that's libel. People sue over such stuff. The court said that no reasonable person would fail to realize that range at the track would be less than on the street. OK, but how about showing us that the car really has a 245-mile range on the road? Nah, then the Roadster might possibly look like a reasonable proposition. The court seemed to forget the falsified items: (1) The 2 cars did NOT break down, (2) did NOT need to be pushed (they portrayed it as a regularly occurring problem - now THAT'S injury), (3) the brakes still WORKED without power assist (and replacing a blown fuse is SOP in a road test review), and (4) the car takes 3.5 hours to charge, not 16. If I saw the show when originally aired, I would have quickly concluded that the Roadster was too flawed to consider as a regular driver, and certainly not worth $100K plus. That would have been wrong, of course, as ~2,600 very happy owners have since proven.

Mr. Musk could have let this go, but, hey, there was a struggling company at stake. Musk is/was the whiny a**hole? Like him or not, he had to put out some kind of rebuttal. And gotta' say, both Top Gear and the court were wrong here. Gosh, fellow ICE lovers, how could that happen? Please see my last two paragraphs below. ps: If you haven't read it, you might read "Top Gear Responds to Teslas Lawsuit", a 4/6/11 article in which Andy Wilman, Top Gear's executive producer, discusses Tesla Motors lawsuit. Mr. Wilman, after he whines that Tesla isn't being nice, is disingenuous and slippery to a degree that literally made me wince. The article is at http://www.wired.com/autopia/2011/04/top-gear-responds-to-teslas-lawsuit/. Contrast this with "Elon Musk Calls Top Gear 'Completely Phony'", a 4/5/11 article at http://www.wired.com/autopia/2011/04/elon-musk-calls-top-gear-completely-phony/. IMHO, Mr. Musks' arguments ring true. Mr. Wilman wrote "At the end of the day, the Tesla performed admirably but fell short because its drawbacks outweigh its advantages. Our conclusion was based primarily on the fact that it costs three times more than the petrol sports car upon which its based, and it takes a long time to recharge; you cant use it as easily as a petrol sports car for the carefree motoring journeys that are a prerequisite [sic] of sports car driving". Why didn't Top Gear drop the deception, and just give us this in a balanced review? August 17 2013 at 11:53 PM Patrick No sh*^ March 12 2013 at 9:35 PM JakeY For all of the people asking about the $171,000: Tesla never wanted to sue for damages. Their main goal was to get Top Gear to make a correction/clarification of the episode for repeat airings of the show. They started the lawsuit with cap of any payout at 100,000 maximum and no specific amount. The judge said he would throw out the suit unless Tesla amends it with a specific damage amount. And given the UK law has a 1 year time limit for malicious falsehood claims, by that time they got around to it (2011) the damage amount can only be calculated based on reruns of the episode in the UK (not the original airing in 2008 with multiple times as many viewers). The amount was likely calculated from a formula that takes into account the number of audience of the reruns, how many potential customers are in that audience, how many Roadsters have been sold so far, and how many potential sales can be made. They aren't going to interview all

the audience to see which one would or would not buy it and then verify if they have the means to buy one. http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/oct/28/top-gear-tesla-malicious-falsehood March 11 2013 at 11:36 PM imtoomuch1 Every sane person knows Top Gear isn't serious. They don't even take themselves seriously. Musk is just continuing his spoiled brat, douchebag ways. I want Tesla to fail, which I am positive that it WILL, simply because I hate the asshat named Musk! March 11 2013 at 7:07 PM -4 Rento Top Gear does give out car advice. Stop saying it doesn't, it's idiotic. It's full of comedy bits and unfortunately quite a lot of crap, however this doesn't take away the fact that they put up a show of being serious when they put a car through a review. Has anyone really thought the GT86 was pure comedy ?? And the Tesla?? Did you all laugh out loud pointing at the screen saying "aw yeah that is comedy!" and then disregarded it completely? I don't know if this has impacted a buyers choice or not but it definitely impacts the brand. Thankfully Tesla produces quality cars and time has proven they are worthy. What Top Gear did it's not fair, it's unhelpful and it's not entertaining. March 11 2013 at 7:04 PM +3 1 reply to Rento's comment Dave "Top Gear does give out car advice." You're absolutely right. And they were correct to advise petrol-heads against buying a Tesla Roadster. It is no substitute for a real sports car. March 12 2013 at 10:39 PM -1 2 replies to Dave's comment Dave

Tesla should be sued for building an excellent commuter vehicle and advertising it as a sports car. March 13 2013 at 7:42 AM -2 Dave And Top Gear deserves credit for calling them out on it. That is their job. March 13 2013 at 9:56 AM -2 Fernando First of all Top Gear is in no way a documentary or fact related type of show, and I am pretty sure anyone that watches it, watches it for it's entertainment value and not for it's consumer review value. For Tesla to even attempt a lawsuit like this they are stoooopid (Jeremy Clarkson voice). Second if they ever watched Top Gear at all they would know that they don't care much for Hybrids or Green cars at all. This reminds me of when they raced the Pryus (again british accent) vs the M3, and the Prius got like 20mph or something stoooopid like that. I don't think Toyota sued them, why? Because it was meant for entertainment not fact. I remember that episode and Tesla should be worrying about reliability more then anything else because if I remember correctly they had to replace stuff like twice because it broke. March 11 2013 at 3:56 PM -1 EJD1984 It all just really boils down to the producers of Top Gear UK have a MAJOR prejudice against any/all American cars. And will look for, or manufacture, an opportunity to disparage one in a review. March 11 2013 at 2:35 PM -2 Arturo Rios Jr. To someone that doesn't understand the show its easy to see how someone might get offended. I got offended to some degree when they made fun of us Mexicans, even our Manchester United Mexican striker "el chicharito" got involve. At the end Top Gear makes up for it and you just forgive the show simply because its so darn good and not meant to really offend anyone. The episodes in top gear are all misleading with the exception of the test track times and the Stig. March 11 2013 at 1:03 PM +1 gmsexton

really 171,000 in lost sales.... sales... not profit.. so like three cars? how in the hell can you even come to the conclusion is was top gear's profile that caused three less cars to be sold? given the poor ratings everyone else was give the car for the exact reason of poor distance between charges... and not what the company claimed... unless three people walked into the dealership and said..."gee... i am not buying this car becasue i watch the episode of top gear"... you can't blame the show.. the funny thing is i am sure far more was spent on attorneys... March 11 2013 at 12:55 PM +3 John Tesla will sue anyone to blame sales losses on anything it seems. Its really unforunate that they're making themselves look even worse with so many law suites. March 11 2013 at 11:11 AM +3 Load more comments

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