Indian patent litigation has a reputation for producing injunctions and not much else. Suits are filed, interim relief is fought over at length, and then matters settle, or drift, or are quietly abandoned once the commercial question has resolved itself. Final decrees are uncommon. Money changing hands at the end of one is rarer still.

Which is why the sums in this decree are worth reading closely, even though the total is modest.

What Happened

Merck Sharp & Dohme held Indian patent IN 209816, covering sitagliptin and its pharmaceutically acceptable salts — the anti-diabetic molecule sold worldwide under a number of brand names and litigated repeatedly in India.

The defendants marketed a product called SEPAMET-XR. They advertised it online, and exported allegedly infringing consignments between September and November 2017. MSD sued.

The defendants initially engaged. They disputed infringement and contested jurisdiction, which is the ordinary opening posture. Then they stopped. They ceased participating in the proceedings and were set down ex parte, and they did not return despite substituted service and notice issued by the Court.

The suit proceeded without them, on MSD's evidence, unrebutted.

The Award

The decree came to ₹81,11,524, made up of three components that are worth separating because they do different work.

Compensatory damages of ₹49,44,450 represent the assessed loss — the ordinary measure, restoring the patentee to the position it would have occupied absent the infringement.

Litigation costs of ₹21,67,074 cover the expense of getting there. That figure is larger relative to the damages than it might first appear, and it reflects something real: pursuing a defendant who has stopped appearing does not reduce the work. Substituted service, evidence on affidavit, and proving a case to a court's satisfaction with nobody on the other side all cost money.

Exemplary damages of ₹10,00,000 are the component that carries a message.

Why the Exemplary Award Was Made

The Court awarded exemplary damages because the defendants continued advertising the infringing products after the interim injunction order — and because the affidavit evidence supporting that allegation went unrebutted.

Both halves matter.

Continuing to advertise after an injunction is not ordinary infringement. It is infringement carried on in the face of a court order, which is a different kind of conduct and attracts a different response. Compensatory damages address the loss; exemplary damages address the contempt for the process, in the loose sense if not the technical one.

The second half is where absent defendants create their own difficulty. Evidence that goes unanswered goes unrebutted, and unrebutted evidence supports findings. The defendants' decision to withdraw from the proceedings did not neutralise the claim against them — it removed the only mechanism by which they could have contested the factual basis for the aggravated award.

Walking away from litigation feels like a cost-saving measure. On this record it added ten lakh to the bill.

What the Numbers Signal

Eighty-one lakh will not deter a serious infringer with a large market. It is a small number by the standards of pharmaceutical patent disputes in other jurisdictions, and anyone expecting Indian courts to start issuing US-scale awards will not find support here.

But the composition is more instructive than the total. The Court assessed compensatory damages on evidence rather than declining to quantify. It awarded costs at a level that reflects actual litigation expense rather than a nominal figure. And it was prepared to add an exemplary component tied to specific post-injunction conduct.

That is a decree constructed to be enforceable and defensible, not a gesture. For patentees who have long treated the interim injunction as the only relief worth pursuing in India, it is evidence that the final stage can produce something.

The Takeaway

For patentees, the practical lesson concerns the record. The exemplary award rested on documented post-injunction advertising, supported by affidavit. Enforcement monitoring that continues after an injunction is granted — capturing listings, advertisements, and export records with dates — is what converts a defendant's defiance into a quantifiable head of claim. Without that evidence the same conduct produces nothing but frustration.

For defendants, the point is blunter. Disengaging from a suit does not end exposure; it forfeits the ability to contest quantum. Everything the plaintiff swears to becomes the record. If there is a genuine answer on infringement, validity, or the extent of sales, the time to put it on file is before the ex parte order, not after the decree.

And for anyone advising on the commercial calculus of an infringement risk: the assumption that Indian patent litigation ends without a payment is now a little less safe than it used to be.