Published: 11/12/15Publication: IAMA press release sent out this afternoon by German law firm Arnold Ruess reveals that its client Sisvel, the Italian patent licensing business, has secured a significant victory in the German courts. In the country's first decision relating to FRAND and standards essential patents (SEPs) since the European [...]

Published: 11/11/16Publication: BGR"Dolby has dragged two Chinese mobile phone players, Vivo and OPPO, in India to the court over alleged licensing violations. The two companies have been directed by the Delhi High Court to deposit royalty on per unit manufactured, sold and imported in India in an escrow account while [...]

Published: 11/7/16Publication: Wall Street Journal"When a Canadian patent-licensing firm wanted to sue Japanese electronics company Sony Corp., it chose an unlikely venue: China. Ottawa-based WiLAN Inc., which earns revenue by licensing its patents, filed a suit against Sony last week in a court in the eastern Chinese city of Nanjing, alleging that the Japanese company’s [...]

Published: 11/7/16Publication: Comparative Patent Remedies"In a judgment dated September 20, 2016, the Tribunal de Commerce de Marseille rejected an unfair competition claim filed by Wiko, which markets mobile phones, products, and telecommunications services, against Sisvel, which the court describes as an intermediary between patent owners and implementers.  (Judgment available here, in [...]

Published: 11/7/16Publication: Allen & Overy"The 8-week Non-Technical trial of Unwired Planet v Huawei has begun. This is the fourth trial concerning Unwired Planet’s (UP) attempts to enforce its Standard Essential Patents (SEPs) against Huawei. In March 2014, UP sued Huawei, Google, and Samsung for infringement of a number of patents. The UK [...]

Published: 11/7/15Publication: FOSS PatentsI write about discovery disputes only once or twice a year because most of them don't matter to anyone other than the parties. But two letters filed by Apple and Ericsson in the Northern District of California last night are worth taking a look because the underlying [...]

Published: 10/10/16Publication: MondaqAlthough China and Japan have very different histories regarding their antitrust laws, antitrust enforcement officials from the two countries have recently taken steps to open a formal dialogue. This is a welcome development for Chinese and Japanese companies, as well as for foreign companies that do business in [...]

Published: 10/7/16Publication: Essential Patent BlogYesterday, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) released a 269-page Report following its study of patent assertion entities (“PAEs”) — i.e. what the FTC’s press release calls “firms that acquire patents from third parties and then try to make money by licensing or suing accused infringers.” (see our Sep. 27, 2013 post, May [...]

Published: 10/7/16Publication: Essential Patent BlogThe U.S. International Trade Commission (“ITC”) recently denied a respondents request to use the Early Disposition Pilot Program to address “whether the asserted patents are standards-essential and are encumbered by mandatory licensing obligations giving rise to public interest concerns."" - [READ MORE] Read More

Published: 10/4/15A few days before Microsoft and Google announced that they were dropping their patent disputes, a decision in an appeals court may have helped the two companies focus on a lasting compromise over their expensive lawsuits over smartphone and other patents. On Sept. 15, the U.S. Court of Appeals [...]