A 2018 amendment to the Indian Commercial Courts, Commercial
Division and Commercial Appellate Division of High Courts Act, 2015
("Commercial Courts Act") makes it mandatory for a party
to exhaust the remedy of mediation before initiating court
proceedings under the Commercial Courts Act, with the limited
exception of cases where urgent relief is being sought. Patent
infringement disputes, being disputes of a commercial nature, are
governed by the Commercial Courts Act and, therefore, the mandatory
pre-institution mediation provision applies to such disputes. The
time bound mediation procedure envisaged in this provision allows a
patentee to not only bring a possible infringer to the By Aparna
Gaur & Aarushi Jain May 4, 2019 In disputes where a patentee is
not seeking a preliminary injunction and wants to use litigation as
a tool to negotiate terms for granting limited rights to their IP,
pre-initiation mediation is a viable option. negotiation table
under the threat of
