Section 11: Civil liability

11. Civil liability (1) Any civil proceeding by an owner of a right, under any of the industrial property enactments for an unfair practice, shall be commenced by way of plaint with summons before the Court. (2) On the request of the owner of a right or of a licensee if he has requested the owner to institute Court proceedings for a specific relief and the owner has refused or failed to do so, the Court may— (a) grant an injunction to prevent an unfair practice, or an unlawful act; (b) award damages; and (c) grant any other remedy provided for in law. (3) In any action for an alleged unfair practice, it shall be presumed, unless the defendant puts it in issue, that— (a) a right subsists in the work to which the action relates; (b) the plaintiff is the owner if he claims so to be. (4) For the purposes of any proceedings under subsection (1), in respect of the violation of the rights of the owner of a patent, where the subject P43 – 5 [Issue 1] matter of the patent is a process for obtaining a product, the burden of establishing that an identical product was not made by the process shall be on the alleged infringer if either of the following conditions is fulfilled— (a) the product is new; or (b) a substantial likelihood exists that the product was made by the process and the owner of the patent has been unable through reasonable efforts to determine the process actually used. (6) In requiring the production of evidence, the Court before which the proceedings referred to in subsection (4) take place, shall take into account the legitimate interests of the alleged infringer in not disclosing his manufacturing and business secrets.