{"id":149616,"date":"2026-05-25T08:00:06","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T02:30:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/?p=149616"},"modified":"2026-05-24T23:35:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T18:05:19","slug":"philips-dvd-standard-essential-patent-damages-reversed-after-17-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/philips-dvd-standard-essential-patent-damages-reversed-after-17-years\/","title":{"rendered":"Philips DVD Standard Essential Patent Damages Reversed After 17 Years"},"content":{"rendered":"

Background<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Standard essential patent litigation is, as the Delhi High Court’s Division Bench observed at the opening of this judgment, a “delicate and involved” affair. Seventeen years after the proceedings began, that phrase proved its full worth.<\/p>\n

Koninklijke Philips Electronics NV (“Philips”), the Netherlands-headquartered consumer electronics company, was granted an Indian Patent bearing number IN 184753 (“the suit patent”) in February 1995, for a decoding device that sits inside every DVD player. The chip converts disc data from 16-bit code words into 8-bit information words, the step that makes a DVD readable. Philips claimed that the suit patent was a standard essential patent (“SEP”), the Indian equivalent of certified essential patents it held in the US (US 5696505) and Europe (EP 745254B1), both of which were formally recognized as essential to the DVD standard maintained by the DVD Forum.<\/p>\n

Rajesh Bansal and K K Bansal traded through Mangalam Technology (“Mangalam”) and Bhagirathi Electronics (“Bhagirathi”), assembling budget DVD players in Haridwar by sourcing component boards from suppliers in China. Philips filed infringement suits against them around 2009. The suit patent expired in February 2015, leaving damages as the only live remedy.<\/p>\n

A Single Judge of the Delhi High Court decreed both suits in Philips’ favour in July 2018, awarding royalty at USD 3.175 per DVD player until May 2010 and USD 1.90 per player until the patent’s expiry, with interest at 10% per annum and punitive damages of \u20b95 lakhs. The Bansals filed an appeal against this decision, and the Division Bench, after hearing the matter at length, reserved judgment in December 2025 and pronounced its ruling on May 18, 2026, allowing the appeals in full.<\/p>\n

Issues Before the Court<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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      1. Whether Indian Patent IN 184753 constitutes a standard essential patent under the DVD standard set by the DVD Forum<\/li>\n
      2. Whether the Bansals’ patent rights were extinguished by the doctrine of international patent exhaustion under Section 107A(b) of the Patents Act, 1970<\/li>\n
      3. Whether the Bansals infringed the suit patent by the direct or indirect test recognized in Intex Technologies (India) Ltd v. Telefonaktiebolaget L.M. Ericsson<\/em> (2023 SCC OnLine Del 1845)<\/li>\n
      4. Whether the damages awarded by the Single Judge, including the royalty rate and punitive damages, were legally sustainable<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

        The Bansals’ Arguments<\/strong><\/h2>\n