Unwired Planet International v. Huawei Technologies
Published: 4/5/17
In 2014, Unwired Planet asserted infringement claims against Google, Samsung, and Huawei over six UK patents that Unwired Planet obtained from Ericsson (note: Google and Samsung since settled, leaving only Huawei to fight the case). The patent portfolio at issue concerns five patents essential to the 2G, 3G, and 4G wireless telecommunications standards developed by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI).
Huawei denied infringement and essentiality, and also contended the patents were invalid, counterclaiming for revocation. Huawei […]
Microsoft Mobile Inc. v. InterDigital, Inc.
Published: 4/13/16
In this case, the court denied InterDigital’s motion to dismiss a Microsoft complaint alleging that InterDigital monopolized markets for SEPs that InterDigital owns. Microsoft alleged that InterDigital fraudulently induced the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (“ETSI”) to incorporate certain InterDigital patents into its standards by committing to license those patents on FRAND terms, and then subsequently breached its FRAND commitments. InterDigital’s breaches, according to Microsoft, included refusing to honor its licensing commitments, transferring certain SEPs to other […]
Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation v. Cisco Systems, Inc.
Published: 12/8/15
This case addressed the damages calculation method for a SEP reading on Wi-Fi technology. The district court based its reasonable royalty determination on licensing negotiations between the parties, using the rates proffered by the parties during negotiations as the lower and upper bounds for a reasonable royalty. On appeal, the infringing party argued that the district court’s methodology for assessing the reasonable royalty was erroneous because it was not based on the smallest saleable patent practicing […]
Saint Lawrence Communications v. Deutsche Telekom
Published: 11/27/15
Case No. 2 O 106/14, Regional Court of Mannheim (2015)
Case No. 6 U 220/15, Higher Regional Court of Karlsruhe (pending)
In late 2015, the Regional Court of Mannheim granted Saint Lawrence Communications’ (“SLC”) motion to enjoin Deutsche Telekom and HTC from selling in Germany mobile phones that infringe a FRAND-encumbered SEP owned by SLC. The Regional Court of Mannheim based its decision on the European Court of Justice’s ruling in Huawei v. ZTE, which […]
Sisvel v. Haier
Published: 11/3/15
Case Nos. 4a O 93/14 and 4a O 144/14, Regional Court of Düsseldorf (2015)
Case Nos. I-15 U 65/16 and I-15 U 66/15, Higher Regional Court of Dusseldorf (pending)
In late 2015, Germany’s Regional Court of Dusseldorf issued the first decision in Sisvel v. Haier that interpreted and applied the European Court of Justice’s decision in Huawei v. ZTE, which specified the circumstances under which a patentee may obtain injunctive relief with respect to FRAND-encumbered SEPs. Huawei […]
Microsoft Corp. v. Motorola, Inc.
Published: 7/30/15
This 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 based on a hypothetical negotiation between the parties, to prevent patent hold-up and royalty stacking. The court ruled that “the parties in a hypothetical negotiation would set […]