Central Government creates Fund for Scientific Advisers to assist court in Patent Litigation

Pursuant to a direction issued by the Delhi High Court, the Central Government has set up a Fund for Scientific Advisers appointed under Section 115 of the Patents Act, 1970..The disclosure was made by the Central Government in an affidavit filed by it before the High Court..“In terms of the aforementioned order dated 20.12.2018, the deponent respectfully submits that the provision for payment of remuneration to Scientific Adviser appointed under Section 115(2) of the Patent Act, 1970 has been made in the existing budget head “Professional Services” of the Office of the Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trademarks.”, the affidavit reads..On December 20, 2018, a Single Judge Bench of Justice JR Midha had directed the Central Government to create a Fund for Scientific Advisers in terms of Section 115 (2) of the Act to assist the courts in patent litigation..“Standing Counsel for the UOI accepts notice and he shall ascertain whether any fund has been created under Section 115 (2) of the Patents Act, 1970. If no such fund has been created till now, the Central Government shall create a fund before the next date of hearing.”, it had ordered..The direction was passed during patent litigation which required the parties to show their presentation/device to a Scientific Adviser..While appointing a Scientific Adviser in the case, the Court had stated that the remuneration of the Scientific Adviser would be defrayed out of the monies provided by the Parliament for that purpose..However, the parties to the litigation informed the Court that they were not aware of any such fund created by the Central Government..The Court, therefore, directed the Central Government to create the corpus till next date of hearing, in case no such fund has been created till now..Plaintiff was represented by Advocates Swathi Sukumar and Naveen Nagarjuna..Defendants were represented by Advocates Neeraj Grover, Anmol Chadha and Anushka Arora..Central Government was represented by Standing Counsel Kirtiman Singh..Read the order:.Bar & Bench is available on WhatsApp. For real-time updates on stories, Click here to subscribe to our WhatsApp.