Introduction
In the present case, the Delhi High Court not only granted a permanent injunction against the use of the patent for infringement but also held the plaintiffs’ patent no. 240893 valid and awarded a validity certificate under section 113 of IPA. The court also awarded damages of Rs. 152.32 Crores (approx.) and a 20% royalty on the defendants’ total antenna sales.
Factual Background
The Plaintiff, a Canadian Company, Communication Components Antenna Inc., obtained its patent in India on 9th June 2010. It acquired TenXc’s patent portfolio under the Assignment of Patents Agreement dated January 2012 and registered itself as the proprietor with the Indian Patent Office in November 2019. Since then, the plaintiff has sold more than 30,000 antennas in India.
The Rosenberger Group comprises four entities that collectively constitute the defendants in this case. One of them is Prose Technologies India Private Limited, an Indian entity that designs, manufactures, and sells the infringing antennas.
The plaintiff solved a priority issue by inventing a conventional-sector antenna with a split-sector antenna whose sub-section beams are at least partially asymmetrical, reducing handover zones rather than increasing them upon replacement.
Plaintiff alleged that the defendant has infringed on its antenna and has sold more than 1.27 Lakhs infringing antennas in India that is three times more that of plaintiff’s.
Analysis
The court held the patent valid on the ground that none of the 11 documents the defendant cited, individually described the exact invention claimed by the patent. The court also noted that the cited documents came from completely unrelated fields, with no logical connection between them.
When both witnesses for the defendants failed to explain the obliviousness to the invention, the court coined the term “Dartboard Model” to explain this. It describes how the defendant requisitely throws as many prior art citations as possible at the patent, hoping that something would stick, it is like throwing darts at a bullseye, which the defendant did in this case. The court warned that it would incur high costs in the future, as this scattershot approach results in wasted time and resources.
The court rejected the defendant’s argument that the patent’s key terms were insufficient and too vague, and that the EPO and China rejected similar applications. The court rejected this because, first, Indian law interprets and reads the claims and their full descriptions together, unlike in the EU and China. Secondly, the plaintiff contended that technology matters more in densely populated markets like India and the EU application was dropped for business reasons.
PW-1, Mr. Mark Cosgrove, an expert witness from the plaintiffs’ side and a president of Communication Components Antenna Inc. PW-1 contended that it used MATLAB software to recreate the beam and patterns using the identical power and phase values as mentioned in the patent and subsequently overlaid them onto the defendants’ brochure diagrams.- The court accepted this contention of the PW1 and found it suspicious that the defendant, even after having a simulation that disproved infringement, still chose not to disclose it.
DW-2, Mr. Mahesh A. Birari, an expert witness from defendants’ side and RF R&D Manager at M/s Prose Technologies. The DW-2 contradicted defendant’s main arguments, as he himself admitted that they relied on the Blass and Nolan Matrices, not a Butler Matrix at all, as the defendants had argued earlier. The court confirmed this by directly reading the Wastberg patent and rejected the Gillette defence, as the entire foundation rested on the wrong matrix.
The defendants compared their antenna with the plaintiffs’ and a third brand’s antennas, prepared a three-way beam pattern comparison for their customer, and benchmarked themselves against the plaintiff’s exact technology. This became the most damaging piece of evidence, directly from the defendants themselves.
The court rejected the plaintiffs’ claim for USD 140 million, finding that not every sale they lost was due to infringement. The court said that in specialized markets like these, with only a handful of buyers and sellers, there are many reasons a customer might prefer one supplier over another. As the plaintiffs’ own witness said, the choice for defendant was partly because their performance was slightly better and partly because their pricing was lower than the plaintiff’s.
The court choose royalty instead as both the parties in its pleadings accepted that it was the valid way to calculate damages. Cour decided the royalty at rate of 20% of the total sales. The court opined that the defendants’ conduct to be in bad faith as it never conducted fair research before launching their product, checking whether it infringed on anyone’s rights and decided that such an infringer who should not be entitled to the same fair rate.
Conclusion
The court granted a permanent injunction against the defendants, prohibiting them from using the infringing antennas or their designs in any way. It also passed a decree for approximately Rs. 1.52 Crore at S.I 7% p.a. and additional damages at 20% of further sale.
This judgment is significant in Indian Patent law, as it established that India applies its own standard for sufficiency of disclosure, independent of other jurisdictions.
It is also important as it introduced and used the dartboard Model for identifying and sanctioning unfocused prior art challenges, and to use MATLAB Simulation to discharge the initial burden of proving infringement in cases where the accused product is withheld. The court granted royalty-based damages in oligopolistic markets, after explaining the infringer’s bad faith.
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Decided on: 30-03-2026
Coram: Justice Prathiba Singh
Citation – 2026 SCC OnLine Del 1357
Author: Akshi Seem, Associate Partner
Co- Author: Madhulika Bhaskar, Intern
