Defendants give undertaking to court not to use IP of young inventor

In one of the first cases filed in Sri Lanka in respect of an infringement of the layout design of an integrated circuit, on or around July 6, 2018, A.M.T. Nirmala, a young inventor from an engineering background, instituted action against Sri Lanka Telecom PLC and Sri Lanka Telecom (Services) Ltd, under the Intellectual Property Act No. 36 of 2003.

Nirmala sought to restrain the defendants from disclosing and/or making use of the undisclosed/confidential/commercially-sensitive information, which has allegedly been illegally obtained from A.M.T. Nirmala, the plaintiff.

When this matter was taken up on July 16, 2018, Sri Lanka Telecom PLC and Sri Lanka Telecom (Services) Ltd, who were summoned, gave the court an undertaking that they would not either manufacture, sell or use any equipment, which incorporates the intellectual property of the plaintiff, until the court inquires into the interim injunction application by the plaintiff. 

Further, the defendants reserved their right to formulate objections in respect of the plaintiff’s case pursuant to examining the documents submitted under a confidential cover by the plaintiff, marked as X1 to X6, which had been deposited in the safe custody of the court.

This case was initially supported on July 6, 2018, where the plaintiff, through his plaint, alleged that the defendants pursuant to requesting the plaintiff to submit a prototype of the plaintiff’s ‘power strip with lightning surge and over voltage protection device’ for testing purposes, had thereafter illegally forced open the plaintiff’s prototype and inspected the technology within the invention without the consent of the plaintiff, especially in the backdrop that it was informed to the defendants that the plaintiff’s device is part of a patent application and submitted confidentially for the purposes of testing.

High Court Judge M. Ahsan R. Marikar on July 6, 2018, being satisfied with the plaintiff’s case, had issued notices of interim injunctions and summons on the defendants, preventing the defendants from making use and/or disclosing such undisclosed/confidential/commercially-sensitive business information illegally obtained by the plaintiff, in respect of the functionality of the plaintiff’s device. 

Further, on July 6, 2018, the judge also permitted the plaintiff’s application to support for the enjoining orders in respect of the undisclosed/confidential/commercially-sensitive business information in respect of the device subject to the patent application and the layout design of the integrated circuit, therein in the event an undertaking for non-use and disclosure was not given by the defendants.

The plaintiff was represented by Nishan Premathiratne, Janith Fernando and Migara Cabral, attorneys-at-law, on the instructions of Julius & Creasy, attorneys-at-law. The defendants were represented by Lasantha Hettiarachchi, Medawani Thilakaratne, Sara Miskin and Himath Silva, attorneys-at-law, on the instructions of Sonali Samaranayake, attorney-at-law.

This matter will be called again on August 6, 2018, for objections to be filed by the defendants.