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10. At this stage it requires to be noticed that the suit, in which the said interim order in Sterlite Technologies Ltd. v. ZTT India Pvt. Ltd. was passed (incidentally by the same learned Single Judge who passed the impugned interim order), was for a permanent injunction restraining the Defendant in that case from infringing two Indian patents. The subject patents there were „method patents‟. The case of the Plaintiff in that case was that "the optical fibre being marketed by the Defendant had the same technical parameters as of the optical fibres of the Plaintiff produced with the patented technology." The said interim order in Sterlite Technologies Ltd. granting ad interim injunction was passed ex-parte. Interestingly in Para 9 of the said order, the learned Single Judge observed that "at this stage, it is not possible to form an opinion, even prima facie." In the said order the learned Single Judge was of the view that there should invariably be an interim injunction granted in the first place in favour of a patent holder for the reasons set out in paras 16-17, which read as under:

(vi) The impugned order does not account for the balance of convenience and the prejudice that would be caused to the Defendant if the interim injunction was to be granted. According to Mr. Vaidyanathan assuming without admitting the Plaintiff‟s case that its annual sales of Regorafenib is around Rs. 25 Crores, the Defendant was prepared to deposit in the Court Rs. 5 Crores without prejudice to its rights and contentions towards the plausible losses that might be suffered by the Plaintiff.

(vii) Mr. Vaidyanathan also made reference to the decision of the Division Bench of this court in Merck Sharp and Dohme Corporation v. Glenmark Pharmaceuticals 2015 (63) PTC 257 [Del][DB] where inter alia it was held that the safe approach for a Single Judge to adopt in the matter of grant of interim injunction in a patent infringement suit was to deny relief in the first hearing and "if there is slightest doubt, set down the application for hearing at the earliest opportunity, even while requiring some semblance of formal disclosure of the defendant". He accordingly prayed that the matter regarding grant of interim injunction, after setting aside the impugned order, should be remanded to the learned Single Judge for fresh disposal on merits.

25. Again, each case of alleged infringement of patent, particularly a pharmaceutical patent, would turn on its own facts. It is not possible to conceive an „across-the-board‟ blanket approach that would apply to all such cases, where as a matter of routine at the first hearing there would be a grant of injunction in favour of the Plaintiff. The decision in the application of interim injunction has to necessarily indicate the view of the Court on the three elements mentioned herein before and the additional features when it involves a case of alleged infringement of a patent, and in particular, a pharmaceutical patent. It is not the length of the order or its precise wording that matters. It is necessary, however, that the factors mentioned hereinbefore must be discernible from the order which comes to a conclusion one way or the other regarding grant of an interim injunction.

28. For the aforementioned reasons, the Court is of the view that the impugned interim order requires to be set aside and the application for interim injunction i.e. IA 8878/2019 be heard once again by the learned Single Judge on merits.

29. It was urged before this Court on behalf of the Respondent/Plaintiff that till the next date before the learned Single Judge, this Court should continue the interim injunction granted by the impugned order. The Court is not inclined to accept this prayer. It is however clarified that the status quo as on 5th July, 2019 prior to the passing of the impugned interim order will be maintained by the Appellant.