Natco Pharma v FMC Corp IPR case: Supreme Court transfers patent infringement suits to Delhi High Court

The Supreme Court recently transferred the patent infringement suits filed by FMC Corporation against Natco Pharma LIMITED to the Delhi High Court. (Natco Pharma Limited v. FMC Corporation and ors).A Bench of Justices MM Sundresh and SVN Bhatti allowed the transfer petition filed by Natco Pharma in this regard, and directed that the suit records be sent from the Chandigarh district commercial court to the Delhi High Court immediately."Pattern being the same and the parties are also the same before different forums, we deem it appropriate to allow these Transfer Petitions by transferring three suits pending on the file of District Court (Commercial), Chandigarh.".The intellectual property rights case is over a patent on the compound Chlorantraniliprole (CTPR), for which the two parties have been litigating before the Delhi High Court since 2022. FMC was earlier denied interim relief by High Court on two occasions, after which Natco filed a revocation petition against the CTPR Patent. Meanwhile, FMC filed three suits before a Chandigarh court.This prompted Natco to file the transfer petition before the apex court..The top court had issued notice in the matter on February 23 this year, and eventually allowed the transfer pleas on April 9..Natco Pharma was represented by Senior Advocate CU Singh with Advocate J Sai Deepak, briefed by a team from Sim And San - Attorneys at Law comprising Partners Mohit Goel and Sidhant Goel, Managing Associate Deepankar Mishra, Senior Associate Aditya Goel and Advocate Kartikey Tandon.Advocates Saksham Dhingra, Rishabh Sharma, V Shyamohan (Partner), Kuriakose Varghese (Managing Partner), Anshika Bajpai, and Tissy Annie Thomas from KMNP Law also appeared for Natco Pharma.FMC Corporation was represented by Senior Advocate Dr. Abhishek Manu Singhvi, briefed by a team from Perfexio Legal comprising Advocates Sanjay Kumar, Arpita Sawhney, Meenal Khurana, Arun Kumar Jena, Siddharth Seem and Mahua Kalra..[Read order]