Interface between Competition Law and Patents Law: A Pandora Box

Abstract

The interface between Intellectual Property Rights and Competition Law has remained a moot point in several jurisdictions including India. There have been conflicting views regarding powers of the Competition Commission to exercise its jurisdiction over Patentee’s right to exclude his/her competitors from using its patented technology. This question again came up before the Hon’ble High Court of Delhi in a recent case of Monsanto v Competition Commission of India. Though the court in the instant case tried to clarify the issue with regard to the conflict of powers between the Competition Commission of India and Power of the Controllers of the Indian Patent Office, there were various issues which were overlooked by the Court. Due to the lack of specific guidelines regarding how to deal with the interface between Competition Law and Patents Law, the issues are settled by the courts on case to case basis. Through this paper, the authors look into the issue of how this interface is dealt with in other jurisdictions such as US and EU. Unlike India, in US and EU guidelines are issued by respective governments regularly in order to solve any possible conflict between Competition Laws and Patent Laws. Through this paper the author suggests for providing such guidelines so as to allow and maintain the delicate balance between Patent Law and Competition Law.