The Case Of Kirkbi AG V. Ritvik Holdings Inc.

Stating the Canadian perspective of the essential facilities doctrine, such doctrine has not been dealt, but courts have faced the challenges under the issue of the IPR and have paced it under the IPR, the Canadian have an same perspective of harmonizing and balancing the two aspects of laws, to which perspective of Canadian becomes an integral part of discussion. Various interesting cases that have been dealt by the Canadian Judiciary and statutes having bearing on IP and competition law will be discussed
An overview of the Competition Act 1986

The primary objective of competition law and policy is to foster competition, consumer welfare and efficiency. The Canadian Law also focuses on these immutable objectives and explicitly provides that:
Ritvik Holdings Inc . , wherein it can be inferred as to how IP holders tend to create monopoly and that can substantially have an effect of lessening the competition. The facts of the case where, Kirkbi was the manufacturer of LEGO products for which it held various patents in Canada and elsewhere. LEGO enjoyed a substantial market share which was the result of monopoly power conferred by IPR. Once the patents expired, the Kirkbi tried to preserve its market position by trying to register the ‘patterns’ on blocks of LEGO as a trademark or design, with the intention of maintaining its monopoly over the product and closing competition in the market. However, the expiry of patents created competition and products which were virtually identical to LEGO came into the market, the most aggressive competitor being Ritvik Holdings. Since Kirkbi didn’t get the ‘pattern’ on LEGO blocks registered as trademark, being a essential and utilitarian feature., it claimed unregistered trademark rights in the product, alleged violation in the form of passing off by Ritvik and sought permanent injunction to prevent marketing of Ritvik’s Mega blocks, coupled with damages. The court stressed that once a patent expires, the product falls into public domain and it cannot be used to extend monopoly. The law of intellectual property discourages attempts to monopolize. Moreover, the function of a trademark is to indicate the source of the product so as to enable the consumer to make differences. Therefore the act of opposite party was absolutely justified and was the result of market