Embertec Pty Limited v Energy Efficient Technologies Pty Limited

In the Federal Court of Australia, Embertec Pty Limited filed a patent infringement claim against Energy Efficient Technologies Pty Limited and Stavros Pappas. The applicants sought relief on the basis of the alleged infringement by the respondents of two patents held by Embertec. The respondents challenged the validity of the patents and sought leave to amend their defence. They also sought discovery of documents. The Court considered the relevance of the documents to the issues in dispute, the utility of the proposed amendment, and the oppressiveness of the discovery applications. Robertson J found that the amendment to the defence should be permitted in a more formal way and the discovery applications were oppressively broad. The Court made orders for the respondents to pay 60% of the applicant's costs of the interlocutory applications.