The Ericsson and Monsanto Patent Competition Litigation

For more than a decade Indian law has been unable to answer a simple question: may the Commission examine the licensing conduct of a patentee, or does the Patents Act, 1970 occupy that field? The litigation produced a single judge decision holding that it may, a Division Bench decision holding that it may not, and a Supreme Court order in September 2025 which disposed of the proceedings on their own facts while expressly leaving the questions of law open. Any note on this subject must state that position accurately, because the temptation to describe the matter as settled is strong and the proposition would be wrong.

1. The Sequence

1. 2013 onwards. Indian handset manufacturers filed information alleging that a holder of standard essential patents had imposed unfair and discriminatory royalties and had used the threat of injunctions to extract terms; a separate information alleged excessive royalties on genetically modified cotton technology. The Commission directed investigation in both matters.
2. 2016. A single judge of the Delhi High Court held that the Patents Act and the Competition Act operate in different fields, that the remedies they provide address different mischiefs, and that the Commission's jurisdiction was not ousted.
3. 2020. That reasoning was followed in Monsanto Holdings (P) Ltd. v. Competition Commission of India.
4. 13 July 2023. A Division Bench of the Delhi High Court took the contrary view. It held that Chapter XVI of the Patents Act, with its provisions on restrictive conditions and compulsory licensing, is a special and later enactment constituting a complete code for the rights and obligations of a patentee, that it therefore prevails over the Competition Act in that field, and that the Commission lacked jurisdiction over the exercise of patent rights. It added that settlements reached between the informants and the patentees had removed the factual substratum of the proceedings. The investigations were quashed.
5. 2 September 2025. The Supreme Court dismissed the Commission's special leave petitions. The order proceeded on the footing that the informants had settled with the patentees, so that on those facts there was no justification for interfering with the High Court's order. The Court expressly kept open the questions of law concerning the interplay between the Patents Act and the Competition Act, to be raised in an appropriate case.

2. The Competing Arguments

3. The Subsequent Development

The question has not rested. The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal has applied the Division Bench view in a matter concerning pharmaceutical patent licensing, and in proceedings arising from that order the Supreme Court has set aside the jurisdictional findings and confined the appeal to the extent of the Commission's power where the grievance concerns a refusal arising from the exercise of patent rights. That question remains for decision. Anything written on this topic should be checked against the current position before publication.

4. The Second Proposition, and Its Difficulty

A further point emerged from the same litigation and deserves separate attention. The Division Bench held, and the Supreme Court accepted on the facts, that once the informant and the patentee have settled their private dispute the substratum of the competition proceeding is gone. That sits uneasily with Samir Agrawal v. Competition Commission of India, (2021) 3 SCC 136, which holds that proceedings before the Commission are in rem and that the informant is not a plaintiff whose satisfaction ends the matter. If a settlement with the complainant ends the inquiry, an enterprise may extinguish public enforcement by buying off the informant. The tension is unresolved and should be noted as such.

5. Related Topics and Provisions