Point of Law: A review can by no means an appeal in disguise where an erroneous decision is reheard and corrected, as has been sought to be urged in the present matter.

ORDER :

REVIEW PETITION No. 24/2022 (by defendant no. 1 and 2 under Section 114 r/w Order XLVII Rule 1 and Section 151 CPC against the order dated 07.01.2022 passed by this Hon’ble Court)

1. This review petition has been filed by the petitioners/defendants No. 1 and 2 against the order dated 7th January, 2022. The petitioners/defendants No. 1 and 2 have submitted that the order of this Court dated 7th January, 2022, allowing in part the application being I.A. 3048/2021 moved by the respondent/plaintiff under Order XI Rules 2 and 14 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1907 (‘CPC’ in short), was liable to be reviewed, as erroneous directions have been issued on the basis of an erroneous understanding of the facts in the matter.

2. I have heard submissions of Mr. Saikrishna Rajagopal, learned counsel for the petitioners/defendants No. 1 and 2 and Mr. Chander Lall, learned senior counsel for the respondent/plaintiff and have considered the written submissions filed by both sides. Though a hearing in review is not a routine procedure, counsel have been heard at length and the written submissions considered.

3. The contentions, as recorded in the written submissions, are briefly as under:

(i) The petitioners/defendants are gravely aggrieved by the directions issued by this Court to produce their third-party agreements, since the findings, on the basis of which, the directions have been issued, are contrary to the submissions made by both the parties and the facts on the record.

(ii) The reasoning given by this Court in Para Nos. 14 and 15 for necessitating the production of the petitioners/defendants agreements are erroneous and contrary to the record.

(iii) This Court had failed to appreciate that whether the suit patents are implemented as the chipset or handset level can be better understood by the agreement between the plaintiff and Qualcomm which is already on record and the production of the petitioners/defendants agreements was wholly unnecessarily, since, they did not relate to the suit patents in any manner.

(iv) This Court erred in holding that the petitioners/defendants agreements would be able to establish whether the respondents/plaintiff patents are Standard Essential Patents (“SEPs”) as this understanding runs contrary to the settled law that essentiality of a patent can only be ascertained by comparing the features of the asserted claim of the patent with the portions of the asserted standard.

(v) It is not even the respondents/plaintiffs case that the petitioners/defendants agreements have any bearing on the issue of the essentiality of the suit patents. Thus making the observation in Para 15 of the order erroneous.

(vi) The Court erred in not appreciating that it is an admitted position that the petitioners/defendants agreement with Qualcomm and other third-parties has nothing to do with the suit patents and that it is neither party’s claim that these agreements in any manner relate to the suit patents.

(vii) The Court erred in observing that I.A. No. 8259/2020 had been moved by the petitioners/defendants, as the same had been moved by the respondent/plaintiff.

(viii) Since the Court had rightly rejected the interrogatories (c) and (d), the Court erred in seeking production of the very same agreements, for if, the interrogatories were irrelevant, there could be no basis to hold that the petitioners/defendants agreements would be relevant to the lis.

(ix) The Court erred in directing the production of documents which were not relevant to ascertain where the suit patents are being implemented and neither party was relying upon the same to substantiate their respective claims, as the respondent/plaintiff was only seeking to gain access to otherwise confidential documents they were not entitled to be privy to.

Thus, it was prayed that the order dated 7th January, 2022 be reviewed and the relief for production of documents, as sought by the respondent/plaintiff in I.A. No. 3048/2021, be rejected.

4. Mr. Saikrishna Rajagopal, learned couns