Philips is arguing that a lawsuit brought by independent service provider Marshall Shannon should be dismissed due to a prior judgement between the two parties.

The motion outlines several reasons to dismiss the case, but appears to be primarily based on Philips' view that Shannon's lawsuit is a "blatant collateral attack" aimed at relitigating or undermining the judgment entered in Philips North America LLC v. Image Technology Consulting LLC, a previous case that resulted in a final judgment against Shannon in March 2025 and was affirmed on appeal.

The judge in that case found that Shannon's company intentionally destroyed electronically stored evidence and entered default judgment on Philips' trade-secret claims, awarding the OEM over $6 million in damages. The court also issued a permanent injunction prohibiting Shannon and his associates from accessing Philips restricted proprietary software without authorization.
While both cases deal with the issue of accessing service software to maintain and install MR systems, Shannon has sought to distinguish the new case from the previous one by framing the question around a failure by Philips to comply with FDA requirements to share equipment servicing information, rather than framing around the use of fake and/or unauthorized IST certificates to circumvent restrictions blocking access to that information.

What is required by Section 820.170?
When medical equipment stakeholders discuss the right to repair, and what ISOs and HTM teams sometimes perceived as unfair practices by OEMs to restrict their ability to service equipment, interpreting the Code of Federal Regulations Title 21, Section 820 is a key piece of the puzzle.

In its motion to dismiss, Philips says the previous case repeatedly held that FDA regulations outlined in Section 820.170 do not require the company to provide its installation materials or proprietary software to Shannon. Philips supports that view by citing the judge's reason for denying a motion to dismiss filed by Shannon in the prior case.

"Nothing about § 820.170 implies that Philips was required to provide [Shannon] with the highest level of CSIP access to inspect or test the equipment," the judge in the prior case wrote. "While the regulation requires Philips to provide installers with the necessary instructions and procedures to install, inspect, and test its equipment, this does not require Philips to provide unfettered access to the features and tools for Philips’s systems."

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