Delhi High Court Refuses To Restrain Haryana Company From Making Foldable Display Units In Patent Row

The Delhi High Court has declined to stop a rival manufacturer from making and selling foldable display units, saying the patent holder did not make out a case for interim protection.

A single bench of Justice Mini Pushkarna, in a judgment delivered on December 24, 2025, dismissed a plea filed by the inventor Amitoje India Private Limited, a Delhi company against Haryana based Classic Display Systems Private Limited. The court held that the company's patent faced a credible challenge on validity and that no prima facie case for an interim injunction was made out.

Amitoje had obtained a patent for its “A Foldable Product Display Unit,” in April 2024. The patent claims features such as movable shelves and foldable side panels that move sideways in the same direction. Amitoje India has said these features make the unit easy to assemble without professional help.

Amitoje India approached the Court alleging that Classic Display Systems Private Limited was manufacturing and supplying display units using these features. It sought an interim order to restrain the company from continuing such manufacture and sale while the suit is pending.

Classic Display opposed the plea. It said it had been making similar foldable display units even before the priority date of Amitoje India's patent. It argued that the invention was obvious and lacked an inventive step. According to Classic Display, the features relied upon by Amitoje India were already known in the field.

To support its case, Classic Display relied on a United States patent publication from 2010. It said the publication disclosed similar features and therefore qualified as prior art.

After reviewing the material on record, the Court reiterated that the grant of a patent does not carry a presumption of validity. It noted that although a pre-grant opposition filed by Classic Display had earlier failed, and no post-grant opposition was pursued, the patent's validity could still be tested before the court in an infringement action.

The court also rejected Amitoje India's submission that a higher threshold applied because Classic Display had been unsuccessful at the pre-grant opposition stage. It pointed out that the prior art relied upon before the court had not been examined during those proceedings, and therefore no heightened standard was required to raise a credible challenge.

Accepting the challenge based on lack of inventive step, the court held that the U.S. patent publication qualified as valid prior art, even though it was later abandoned, since it had been published well before the priority date of Amitoje India's patent.

Applying the test for obviousness laid down in F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd. and another versus Cipla Ltd., the court identified the person skilled in the art as one experienced in the field of foldable product display units and possessed of common general knowledge in that area.

It observed, “At the time of the alleged invention, it would have been obvious to a Person Skilled in the Art, to arrive at the claimed features in the light of prior art and common general knowledge. Thus, viewed in the context of common general knowledge, the claimed invention does not meet the threshold for inventive step under Section 2 (1)(ja) of the Act.”

On comparing the patented invention with the prior art, the court found that both addressed similar concerns, particularly ease of assembly and coordinated movement of shelves. The only real distinction, it noted, lay in the direction in which the side panels folded.

On this aspect, the court observed, “The alteration in the direction of folding of side panels, is nothing more than a mere workshop improvement/incremental advancement, in relation to what was known before, and the probable capacity of the Person Skilled in the Art.”

In view of these findings, the court held that Classic Display had raised a credible challenge to the validity of the patent. It concluded that Amitoje India had failed to make out a prima facie case for interim relief.

The court accordingly dismissed Amitoje India's plea seeking an interim injunction against Classic Display Systems.