Does Patents Act prevail over Competition Act for exercise of patent rights? Supreme Court to examine

The Supreme Court recently issued notice in an appeal filed by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) challenging a decision of the Delhi High Court which held that the Patents Act,1970 prevails over the Competition Act, 2002 when it comes to the issue of exercise of rights by a patentee [Competition Commission of India v. Monsanto Holdings Private Limited and Others]..A three-judge Bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra ordered,"Delay condoned. Issue notice. Counter affidavit be filed within a period of four weeks. Rejoinder affidavit, if any, be filed within a period of two weeks thereafter. List the Special Leave Petitions after six weeks on a non-miscellaneous day.".Additional Solicitor General N Venkatraman with Advocates Samar Bansal, Avinash Sharma, V Chandrashekara Bharathi, Amritha Chandramouli, Rahul Vijaykumar, Akanksha Kapoor, Prateek Bhardwaj and Shivshankar G appeared for CCI.Senior Advocates Abhishek Manu Singhvi and Rajshekhar Rao, along with Advocates Mahesh Agarwal, Rishi Agrawala, Ankur Saigal, S Lakshmi Iyer, Shruti Bhatnagar, Himanshu Sarashwat, Adarsh Ramanujan and EC Agrawala represented Monsanto.Senior Advocates Mukul Rohatgi, CS Vaidyanathan and Sajan Poovayya, along with Advocates Gaurav Sharma, Saya Choudhary, Ashutosh Kumar, Vrindha Bagaria, Vinod Chouhan, Radhika Pareva, Shashan Gautam, Soham Goswami, Aashna Manocha, Bhaavi Goel, Abhishek Kakker and Dhawal Mohan appeared for Ericsson..In its decision, the Delhi High Court had said that the Competition Commission of India (CCI) does not have the jurisdiction to inquire into the business of licensing of a patent by a patent holder or whether a company, in the exercise of its patent rights, has abused its dominant position.The High Court had laid down the law while dealing with a set of appeals and a writ petition filed by agrochemical giant Monsanto, telecom company Ericsson as well as CCI.“In reconciling the two statutes [Patents Act and Competition Act], the subject matter that is in focus is not merely anti-competitive agreements and abuse of dominant position, which both the Patents Act (in Chapter XVI) and the Competition Act (in Sections 3 and 4) deal with. The subject matter that is relevant for this assessment is anti-competitive agreements and abuse of dominant position by a patentee in exercise of their rights under the Patents Act. On this issue, there is no scope of doubt beyond the pale of doubt that the Patents Act is the special statute, and not the Competition Act. It is also a fact that Chapter XVI of the Patents Act is a subsequent legislation as compared to the Competition Act,” the High Court had held.It had disagreed with the arguments of CCI and said that Chapter XVI of the Patents Act is a complete code on all issues pertaining to unreasonable conditions in agreements of licensing of patents, abuse of status as a patentee, inquiry in respect of the same and relief that is to be granted.It had underlined that the Competition Act is a general legislation pertaining to anti-competitive agreements and abuse of dominant position generally. The inclusion of Section 84(6)(iv) in the Patents Act by way of an amendment after the Competition Act was passed with Section 3(5)(i)(b) is particularly instructive of the legislative intent..[Read Order]