Published: 1/1/13In this decision, a Chinese appellate court determined the FRAND royalty for FRAND-encumbered SEPs relating to various telephony standards. The court determined that the SEP holder breached its FRAND commitments by seeking excessive royalties. The court affirmed a lower court’s determination of the FRAND rate by reference to the [...]

Published: 1/1/13This decision established FRAND royalty rates for the use of Motorola’s FRAND-encumbered SEPs that were essential to the H.264 video compression standard and the 802.11 (Wi-Fi) wireless local area networking standard.  The court applied a modified version of the Georgia-Pacific methodology for establishing royalties in patent cases, which is [...]

Published: 1/1/13The plaintiff in this case, Realtek, a manufacturer of Wi-Fi chips, asserted that LSI, a holder of two FRAND-encumbered Wi-Fi SEPs breached its FRAND obligation by seeking an exclusion order (the equivalent of an injunction) against the importation of Realtek’s Wi-Fi chips and sought an order barring LSI from [...]

Published: 1/1/12The trial court decision was rendered by Court of Appeals Judge and leading antitrust scholar Richard Posner.  In that decision, Judge Posner rejected Motorola’s request to enjoin Apple from practicing FRAND-encumbered SEPs owned by Motorola, stating:  “I don't see how, given FRAND, I would be justified in enjoining Apple [...]

Published: 1/1/12In this decision, the court affirmed a lower court’s holding that enjoined a holder of FRAND-encumbered SEPs from seeking to enjoin a potential licensee.  The court addressed a FRAND commitment made to the International Telecommunications Union, under which the SEP holder undertook to “grant a license to an unrestricted [...]

Published: 1/1/12This article examines how patent assertion entities (PAEs), or patent “trolls,” use the threat of an injunction to hold up product producing companies in patent suits. The Supreme Court’s 2006 eBay decision largely ended that practice, at least in district court. But it has had the unintended consequence of [...]

Published: 1/1/08This decision denied a motion to dismiss the plaintiff’s breach of contract and antitrust claims against Motorola based on the claim that Motorola refused to negotiate FRAND licenses in good faith.  The court rejected Motorola’s claim that it lacks monopoly power based on its SEPs, holding that the promulgation [...]

Published: 1/1/07Broadcom brought an antitrust action in which it alleged that Qualcomm had persuaded the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (“ETSI”) to incorporate Qualcomm’s patented technology by committing to license the technology on FRAND terms but later reneged on its commitment.  A district court dismissed Broadcom’s complaint, and the Third Circuit [...]

Published: 1/1/06This brief makes the same points as the IEEE brief in the Ericsson case cited above. In the brief, the IEEE underscores the importance of ex ante competition as the basis for determining FRAND royalties, stating that FRAND commitments are designed “to preserve the competitive benefits of ex ante [...]