The Hindu Business Line : Patent dispute: TVS Motor goes on appeal

Stressing “there is no injunction against selling the ‘Flame’ motorcycles,” Mr Srinivasan pointed out that the injunction was only against the use of the engine with twin spark plugs.

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Chennai, Feb. 26 TVS Motor Company on Monday has gone on appeal to the Madras High Court against the order of the single judge of the same court restraining it from selling motorcycles using cylinders with twin spark plugs.

TVS Motor’s Chairman and Managing Director, Mr Venu Srinivasan, told presspersons here on Monday that the company would go ahead with the launch of the 125cc motorcycle Flame, albeit with a single spark plug engine.

The launch will happen next month and TVS Motor expects to sell 20,000 units by the end of March. At present, the company has an inventory of 4,000 Flame motorcycles and another 600 units are lying with various dealers. TVS Motor reckons it will be able to produce 16,000 units of the motorcycle this financial year.

In 2008-09, it estimates that it could sell 250,000 Flame motorcycles.

Stressing “there is no injunction against selling the ‘Flame’ motorcycles,” Mr Srinivasan pointed out that the injunction was only against the use of the engine with twin spark plugs.

‘Still have strong case’

TVS Motor, which believes that an engine with two spark plugs is ‘prior art’ or, already known, having been in existence since the 1930s, feels that it still has a strong case. Mr Srinivasan feels that some crucial evidence provided to the court were not taken into account. For example, Bajaj’s patent is for a twin spark plug small engine, of 45 mm to 70 mm bore size. However, Honda, the inventor of the technology did make engines of 64-mm bore size, which makes Bajaj’s case a ‘prior art’. This, Mr Srinivasan said, was ignored.

TVS believes its technology is not about two spark plugs at all — the crucial component is the presence of three valves, instead of the usual two. AVL of Austria, which helped TVS develop this technology concurs with this view, he said.

Answering a question, Mr Venu Srinivasan said that the company lost about Rs 120 crore in sales because of the delay in launching the Flame. He, however, did not want to quantify the extent of loss of profits.