Madras High Court Dismisses Chennai Firm's Plea To Revoke Food Processor Patent Of Dutch Appliance Company
Ayushi Shukla
9 Jan 2026 9:32 AM IST
The Madras High Court has dismissed a patent revocation plea filed by Maya Appliances Private Limited, a Chennai-based company, seeking to revoke a food processor patent held by Versuni Holding B.V., a Netherlands-based home appliances company.
In an order passed on December 19, 2025, Justice N. Senthilkumar allowed Versuni's application seeking rejection of the revocation proceedings, holding that the challenge was not maintainable since the very same issue had already been raised in a pending patent infringement suit before the Delhi High Court.
Referring to the Supreme Court's ruling in Alloys Wobben v. Yogesh Mehra, the Court reiterated that, “once a defence available to the first respondent herein has been exercised, the same cannot be re-agitated before any other forum or in any other manner.”
Versuni, a former business division of the Royal Philips Group and now the company behind Philips Domestic Appliances, deals in products such as air fryers, vacuum cleaners and coffee machines. It holds the patent titled “An Apparatus and Method for Processing a Food Stuff.”
Versuni had filed a patent infringement suit against Maya Appliances which is pending before the Delhi High Court. In those proceedings, Maya Appliances disputed the validity of the patent in its written statement and specifically sought its revocation as part of its defence.
Despite having raised the revocation plea in the Delhi High Court suit, Maya Appliances subsequently approached the Madras High Court through a separate proceeding seeking revocation of the same patent.
Versuni opposed this move, arguing that once the validity challenge had already been invoked in the earlier infringement suit, a parallel revocation petition before another forum was impermissible and amounted to forum shopping.
After examining the scheme of the Patents Act, particularly Sections 64 and 107, the Court held that a party cannot simultaneously pursue multiple remedies for revocation of the same patent in different forums.
The court also noted that Maya Appliances had not challenged the patent at the pre-grant or post-grant stages and had already taken specific pleas relating to revocation in the Delhi High Court proceedings. In view of this, the Court concluded that the independent revocation petition was not maintainable.
Accordingly, the Court allowed Versuni's application and dismissed the revocation plea filed by Maya Appliances.
Case Title: Versuni Holding BV v. Maya Appliances Private Limited
Citation: 2026 LLBiz HC (MAD) 12
Case Number.: (PT) A No. 3 of 2024
For Applicant: Senior Advocate P.V. Balasubramanian for Advocate K. Premchandar
For Respondent: Advocate Arun C. Mohan