TVS Motor and Bajaj Auto Settle 12-Year Old Patent Dispute

In an announcement made by the well-known two-wheeler manufacturing brands, TVS Motor and Bajaj Auto, it has been revealed that they will bury their 12-year old legal battle and will try to resolve their differences over a patent case.

In the official statements issued by both the companies on October 31, 2019, they said they have entered into a settlement agreement. According to the announcement, they will try to resolve their issues regarding a dispute related to alleged infringement of Bajaj’s patent, defamation suit by TVS Motor against Bajaj, and other related proceedings filed against each other.

This case was pending for 12 years before the Madras High Court, the Bombay High Court, the Intellectual Property Appellate Board, Chennai, as well as in the courts of Sri Lanka and Mexico. In a filing with the stock exchange, TVS Motor and Bajaj Auto responded in similar statements and said, “Both TVS Motor and Bajaj Auto have mutually agreed to withdraw the pending proceedings and release each other from all liabilities, claims, demands and actions in respect of the pending proceedings.”

Both the companies do not require to pay any compensation or penalty as apart of the settlement. In addition to that, it has been reported that there will be no impact on the financial position of Bajaj Auto due to the pact.

In order to clear the dust, we dug deep into the history and found out that Bajaj Auto had filed a case to restrain TVS Motor from selling its two-wheeler TVS Flame in the market as the brand doubted that TVS had infringed the patent on Bajaj’s DTS-i (Digital Twin Spark Plug ignition) technology.

According to Bajaj, the Flame’s CCVTi technology was a copy of its DTS-i technology whereas TVS denied Bajaj’s allegation and filed a ₹250-crore defamation case against the brand. After the recent announcement, the shares of Bajaj Auto rose by 0.79% whereas shares of TVS Motors fell by 2.13% on the BSE.

Source: NDTV