On February 20, 2025, the Delhi High Court ruled in favor of Philips and found that all three DVD manufacturers had “knowingly” used Philips' patented EFM+ technology without a license. However, as the patents in question expired in February 2015, the court was unable to grant an injunction at this stage. The patent in question is: Indian Patent No. 218255 (“Method for converting information words into modulated signals”).

Between May and September 2012, Philips sued three Indian DVD manufacturers, Pearl Engineering Company, Powercube Infotech and Siddharth Optical Disc Private Ltd. Each manufacturer was accused of infringing standard essential patents (SEPs) covering the 8 to 14 modulation-enhanced (EFM+) code, which constitutes an industry standard essential to the manufacture, storage and reproduction of data in digital formats such as DVDs.

However, although the defendants admitted to copying DVDs in large quantities, they argued that they used a “mechanical process” and denied infringing Philips' patents. The defendants stated that the patent in question related to a data compression process used in the manufacture of the original DVDs, and that the mechanical process they used was different. In addition, the defendants claimed to have obtained the necessary documents, such as copyright licenses from content owners, for the reproduction of DVDs and that the EFM+ encoding process had been outsourced to a third party, and therefore their actions did not constitute infringement.

Siddharth Optical, Pearl Engineering and Powercube Infotech also sought to revoke the patents-in-suit, challenging their validity and claiming that Philips had been aware of their manufacturing activities since 2005, 2006 and 2007, respectively, but delayed their filing of the lawsuits for almost six years.

Although the three lawsuits were tried independently of each other, the court ultimately ruled in a single joint judgment because the core issues in each case were essentially the same.

The court's decision confirmed that the three defendants had intentionally used Philips' patented EFM+ technology despite repeated notifications. The court rejected the defendants' outsourcing argument and reiterated that they were fully liable for the infringement. It also rejected the argument that Philips had deliberately delayed its enforcement action, stating that the patent remained enforceable regardless of the passage of time.