Delhi High Court rulings increase SEP licensing risks for Indian automakers

The migration of SEP litigation from smartphones to automotive manufacturing threatens the $11 billion Indian investment strategy of Japanese OEMs like Toyota, Honda, and Suzuki. With India’s 5G network now covering nearly every district, every connected vehicle produced locally is an automatic SEP implementer subject to these new judicial standards. Manufacturers must now treat connectivity licensing as a core operational risk, as a single injunction on a cellular chipset could halt entire vehicle assembly lines. Watch for whether more OEMs join the Avanci 5G Vehicle program to hedge against fragmented litigation across cellular, Wi-Fi 6, and V2X standards.

The shift toward India as a global automotive hub comes as Japanese manufacturers aggressively diversify away from China. Per Reuters (November 2025), Japanese direct investment in India’s transport sector surged sevenfold between 2021 and 2024, reaching nearly $2 billion annually, while similar investment in China plummeted by 83% to just $300 million. Suzuki currently controls approximately 40% of the Indian passenger vehicle market and plans to scale production to 4 million units annually. Similarly, Honda has designated India as the primary production and export base for its 'Zero series' electric vehicles slated for 2027 launch, according to IBEF (November 2025).

Consolidating these legal risks, the Delhi High Court's 2024 ruling in Ericsson v Lava established that the Patents Act of 1970 is lex specialis, effectively barring the Competition Commission of India (CCI) from intervening in royalty disputes. This legal landscape is further complicated by India's rapid infrastructure transition. Per BuildByRaviRai (April 2026), the market has converged on the CCS2 charging standard for passenger vehicles, rendering the Japanese-backed CHAdeMO standard functionally dead for new installations. This forces Japanese OEMs to navigate a CCS2-specific SEP environment involving ISO/IEC 15118 protocols.

In response to these rising litigation risks, patent pools like Avanci have seen significant momentum. Per ip fray (March 2026), Avanci's 5G Vehicle platform now covers over 275 million connected vehicles across 140 brands, including recent licensees such as Toyota. The pool recently expanded its reach by launching an Avanci Wi-Fi platform in early 2026 to cover Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 7 SEPs, signaling a move to aggregate the multiple connectivity standards—including Bluetooth and V2X—that Indian courts now treat as essential for finished vehicle operations.