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Delhi High Court: In a suit seeking a permanent injunction restraining infringement of Split Sector Antenna patent along with damages/rendition of accounts of profits, delivery up, etc., the Single Judge Bench of Prathiba M. Singh, J., held that the suit patent was valid; granted a permanent injunction; directed the Registry to issue a certificate of validity and passed a decree for a sum of Rs 152,32,36,783.90 in favour of the plaintiff, for the period during which the sales figures had been furnished before the Court, The Court further directed the defendants to bear the complete actual costs incurred by the plaintiff in the present litigation, after the further assessment by the Taxation Officer.
Background
The plaintiff had filed the present suit seeking a permanent injunction restraining infringement of Indian Patent No. 240893 (suit patent) along with damages/rendition of accounts of profits, delivery up, etc.
The plaintiff is a company engaged in developing innovative products and solutions for cellular service providers, including technologies that integrate with base transceiver station (BTS) equipment. Defendant 1, Rosenberger Hochfrequenztechnik GmbH & Co. KG, is a prominent antenna manufacturing company with a global presence, and Defendant 2 is the Indian subsidiary of the Rosenberger Group. Together, both the defendants are engaged in designing, developing, manufacturing and selling multi-beam antennas that emit asymmetrical beams.
The plaintiff alleged infringement of the suit patent by various antenna models of the defendants. Purportedly, the comparison of the defendants’ beam patterns with the beam patterns of the suit patent shows that the main beams, as well as the design values at the corresponding frequencies and scales, are identical. The plaintiff claimed that since the beam patterns of the defendants’ products and the antenna disclosed by the suit patent were identical, both would have identical asymmetry and performance characteristics. The asymmetrical coverage of the antennas would also deliver the same energy to the critical coverage area.
The plaintiff averred that the fact that the cellular operators accepted the defendants’ infringing antennas as a substitute for the plaintiff’s antennas clearly indicates that both antennas had substantially identical total critical coverage area. The plaintiff claimed that its market in India was substantially affected due to the defendants’ infringing antennas for almost a decade.
Hence, the present suit for permanent injunction and damages.
Issues
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Whether the suit patent was liable to be revoked?
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Whether the defendants were infringing the suit patent?
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Whether the plaintiff was entitled to a permanent injunction and damages/rendition of accounts, if so, how much?
Analysis
Issue 1: Whether the suit patent was liable to be revoked?
The Court noted that the elements wherein the novelty and inventive step of the suit patent reside were not disclosed in any of the prior art documents. As the antenna producing asymmetrical beams may have been known, but other advantages were not achieved prior to the suit patent. The Court stated that the suit patent explained the manner in which greater network efficiency could be obtained in a network, while maintaining the coverage area and reducing the handover zone.
The Court further noted that the witnesses who appeared on behalf of the defendants were not able to discharge the onus of proving that the subject invention as a whole was not novel or lacked inventive step.
The Court observed that the pleas of invalidity or lack of inventive step have been raised primarily on the aspect of insufficiency and lack of definitiveness in the claims. Further, the plaintiff’s corresponding patents before the European Patent Office (EPO) and in China were previously rejected on these grounds. However, the Court observed that the complete specification considered by the EPO or in China was distinguishable from the suit patent even on the plain reading of the claims. The Court noted that the requirement in China for patentability is also not the same as India. Thus, the Court held that the defendants failed to discharge the burden of proving the invalidity of the suit patent.
Accordingly, the Court decided the first issue in favour of the plaintiff, holding the suit patent IN’893 to be valid and dismissing the defendants’ counterclaim.
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Issue 2: Whether the defendants were infringing the suit patent?
The Court stated that the usual way of proving infringement was by comparing the claims of the suit patent to the defendants’ products. However, in the present case, the Court faced a unique situation where the defendants’ product was not readily available, except for the brochures. The Court stated that if the defendants were confident of not infringing the suit patent, they could have established the same by candidly producing their beam patterns; however, the defendants’ conduct was suspicious. The Court noted that the defendants were clearly making it difficult for the plaintiff to prove infringement.
The Court stated that the novelty and the inventive step in the plaintiff’s patent lie in the fact that in a sector antenna containing a plurality of sectors, one sector is split in a manner to achieve the same critical coverage area. The Court noted that the plaintiff’s patent does not intend to cover all asymmetrical antennas but only those in which asymmetry is achieved by maintaining the same critical coverage area but reducing the handover zones. The Court observed that the plaintiff sought to prove infringement by comparing the beam patterns in the defendants’ brochures, and overlaying the same on the plaintiff’s beam patterns as disclosed in IN’893 in terms of power and phase weightings disclosed in the suit patent.
The Court noted that the beam patterns, as emerging from the plaintiff’s patent and the defendant’s brochures, when overlaid above each other at different weightings and values, show identical beam patterns. The Court stated that the defendants did not produce any alternate beam patterns of the defendants’ antenna to dispute the beam patterns produced by the plaintiff; thus, the plaintiff charged its initial onus, while the defendants failed to do so.
Accordingly, the Court held that, under the given circumstances, the only conclusion that could be reached was that the plaintiff sufficiently proved infringement of its suit patent.
Issue 3: Whether the plaintiff is entitled to a permanent injunction and damages/rendition of accounts, if so, how much?
At the outset, the Court noted that the plaintiff had prayed for both damages and rendition of accounts of profits; however, Section 108, Patents Act, 1970, allows the plaintiff to choose only one of them as relief. The Court stated that, in patent infringement suits, the Delhi High Court Intellectual Property Division Rules, 2022, provide for various methods to calculate damages. These include the plaintiff’s loss of profits, the defendants’ profits, and income that could have been earned through royalties or licence fees. The Court further noted that factors such as the conduct of the parties and the duration of the infringement may also be considered.
“The general principle for award of damages is that the innocent party has to be put in the same position as it would have been, if not for the infringement.”
The Court stated that the threshold feature for calculating damages would be the exclusive nature of the industry in question. There are a limited number of antenna manufacturers and sellers, and also a limited number of telecom service providers who would be the purchasers/customers of the manufacturers.
The Court observed that in the present case, two of the main manufacturers, i.e., the plaintiff and the defendants, were in dispute in respect of the antenna in question. The Court noted that while some part of the plaintiff’s sales may have been depleted due to stiff competition from the defendants, it cannot be the sole and only factor, as the defendants may have been able to sell more antennas due to various other factors as well.
Accordingly, the Court held that, in the present case, loss of profits could not be awarded merely on the basis of the defendants’ sales. Instead, a reasonable measure would be either the plaintiff’s price erosion or the royalties that the defendant would have been required to pay had it licensed the plaintiff’s technology.
“In cases of patent infringement, one measure of compensatory damages is the royalty which a licensor would have agreed upon at the time of the infringement, upon considering the nature of the patent, the extent of its use, and the commercial advantage derived therefrom.”
On the erosion of the price per antenna of that of the plaintiff, the Court noted that it was clear, from the plaintiff’s evidence, that on many occasions, due to competition, the plaintiff had themselves reduced the price of their antenna. The Court stated that under such circumstances, the infringement of the suit patent cannot be the sole factor for a reduction in the plaintiff’s antenna’s price. The Court referred to the discussion in “Terrell on the Law of Patents” (18th Edition) on the principles on which damages are to be assessed, particularly where the patentee grants licenses.
The Court perused the licence agreement on record and found that the agreement prescribed a range of royalties per antenna. However, based on this range, the Court held that the defendants could not be treated on par with a bona fide licensee who had negotiated the licence, and were instead liable to pay royalty at the higher end of the range on their sales.
Accordingly, the Court held that an appropriate royalty rate would be 20 per cent of the price of the antenna, and held it to be a fair and justified measure of the damages suffered by the plaintiff.
Decision
The Court held that the defendants failed to establish any grounds for revocation of the suit patent, i.e., IN’240893. Accordingly, this issue was decided in favour of the plaintiff, and the counterclaim of the defendants was dismissed. The Court held that the plaintiff successfully discharged the onus of proving that the defendants are infringing the plaintiff’s patent; hence, this issue was held in favour of the plaintiff. The plaintiff was found to be entitled to a permanent injunction and damages. Insofar as damages/rendition of accounts were concerned, only one of these reliefs would be liable to be considered. In the facts of this case, the plaintiff had pressed for damages, which relief was considered and granted by the Court.
Reliefs
The Court granted a permanent injunction restraining the defendants and their associated companies from selling, offering for sale, or promoting any antenna that infringes the plaintiff’s patent. The decree for a sum of Rs152,32,36,783.90 was passed in favour of the plaintiff, for the period during which the sales figures have been furnished before the Court.
The defendants were directed to file additional sales affidavits for the unaccounted sales, up to the date of this judgment; the damages in terms of the additional sales affidavits were directed to be calculated on the basis of 20 per cent of the said sales.
The Court found the plaintiff entitled to taxed costs as well, and thus, directed the plaintiff to appear before the Taxation Officer for the determination of the actual costs incurred by the plaintiff in the present litigation. The defendants were directed to pay the costs, as determined by the Taxation Officer, to the plaintiff. Further, the plaintiff was directed to deposit the additional court fees as per the reliefs granted.
Accordingly, the Court held that the suit patent was a valid patent, and directed the Registry to issue a certificate of validity in terms of Section 113.
[Communication Components Antenna Inc. v. Rosenberger Hochfrequenztechnik Gmbh & Co. KG, 2026 SCC OnLine Del 1357, decided on 30-3-2026]
Advocates who appeared in this case:
For the plaintiff: Senior Advocate Gaurav Pachnanda with Sidhant Goel, Mohit Goel, Deepankar Mishra, Aditya Goel and Avni Goel, Advocates
For the defendants: Senior Advocate Vivek Chibb with Late Varun Sharma, Manish Aryan, Nishant Rai, Manisha Singh, Abhai Pandey, Mansi Gupta, Siddharth, Akhya Anand, Shivani Singh, Dhruv Tandan and Anju Agarwal, Advocates
