Published: 2/15/16
Publication: IPKat
The IPKat has been aware for some time that the Patents Court, in the person of Mr Justice Birss, has been devoting considerable time to a series of cases concerning mobile phone technology (Unwired Planet v Huawei and Samsung).
The dispute concerns five patents which Unwired Planet acquired from Ericsson and one which it had filed itself. These patents were asserted against Huawei, Samsung and Google (the last of which has settled and is no longer a party to the litigation).
Due to the scope of the litigation, it was streamlined at an early stage with Mr Justice Birss deciding to hold a series of five technical trials on the issues of infringement and validity of the patents in question, followed by a non-technical trial to decide between competing views as to what constitutes a fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) licence as well as other competition and licensing issues.