Context: In January 2024, Philips sued Shenzhen-based Transsion (often dubbed the “Smartphone King of Africa”) in the Delhi High Court over several Unified Speech and Audio Coding (USAC) and Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) standard-essential patents (SEPs). In July 2024, Philips applied for an interim injunction, requesting asset-freezing and asset-disclosure orders against Transsion and its subsidiaries in India (July 29, 2024 Delhi High Court order). A hearing was held on these issues in October 2024.
What’s new: In a hearing in the Delhi High Court today, Philips and Transsion announced that they have settled their USAC, AAC SEP dispute, after Transsion took a license to the relevant SEPs.
Direct impact: This settlement marks Transsion’s third publicly known SEP licensing agreement with a major patentee this year, after the Chinese mobile phone maker also struck deals with Nokia (January 30, 2025 ip fray article; without prior litigation) and Qualcomm (January 16, 2025 ip fray article) earlier this year.
Wider ramifications: A string of agreements shows Indian patent litigation can drive settlements, and parties often settle early, even if sometimes the cases can be slow. Other examples include Qualcomm’s settlement with Transsion and the patent licensing deal Philips signed with vivo, putting an end to their five-year 3G and 4G SEP dispute in India (April 15, 2024 ip fray article).
As of May 2024, Transsion had over 1,445 filed patents, including a total of 245 granted. This number is likely to have grown a lot since, and its series of settlements shows the company has become more and more powerful in SEP licensing negotiations.
Counsel
Chitra Iyer led the strategy and efforts for Philips (as Licensing Program leader for India). Philips was also represented by Singh and Singh’s Saya Choudhary, Ashutosh Kumar, Munesh Kumar Sharma, and Harsshita Pothiraj, as well as Vrinda Bagaria (formerly Singh and Singh), Vagish Pandey, Sandeep Sethi, and C.M. Lall.
Transsion was represented by Saikrishna & Associates’s Julien George, Anu Paarcha, Arjun Gadhoke, and Aniruddh Bhatia.
ip fray’s Anushka Sharma was listening to the Delhi court hearing today.