Right to seek justice is the most basic tenet of human life, but what if this right to seek justice is desisted by courts of justice itself? Yes, this crudestatement with other paraphernalia insinuates a concept known as‘Anti Suit Injunction’, (ASI) by virtue of which a court restrains a party from prosecuting and/or instituting a suit between same parties, in any other court of law. But certainly that’s not where things terminate! To cease the conflicting judgments emanating from various jurisdictions and for amicable resolution of disputes by one court only, a relatively novel concept of ‘Anti-Anti-Suit Injunction’(A2SI), with a primary intent ofreversing the efficacy of ASI by preventing the other party to take shed under ASI, has took the centre stage. As the functioning of both ASI and A2SI is not in coherence with the basic notions of international law along with some coordinative rules, so the appropriateness of them as a remedy is vastly questionable.
These remedies have recently surfaced into the domain of ‘Standard Essential Patents’ (SEP), leaving the parties to the dispute concerning SEP licensing (which are global in effect, aslegal actions centering on identical patents or related issues are often taken in parallel and multiple jurisdictions 1 ) in legal chaos as to which court of law will hear them.
What motivated the authors to usher into this domain is the topical, contemporaneous nature along with increase in its relevance in its confrontation with the SEPs, the same itself being a highly contemporary and ever evolving domain of patenting landscape. With the ever advancement of technology, this field is highly debated and is being pondered over in various sectors including academics! The present paper is a part of the ongoing research, to give a thorough discourse through a series of articles spanning across the year in upcoming volumes of this journal. The current and first installment of this yearlong series would try to apprise the readers towards this multidimensional issue of A2SI with its confrontation with SEPs with the subsequent issue briefing the global scenarios and way forward concerning this issue of A2SI. The latter part of this yearlong series would then try to provide a fundamentaloverview of SEPs from the very scratch itself to satiate the questions so raised by the former issues amongst the mind of readers.