Today Ericsson filed its response to Adaptix’s sudden motion to withdraw its Complaint and terminate the ITC’s investigation of whether Ericsson’s base stations infringe an Adaptix patent alleged to cover cellular LTE standards. Recall from our post last week that it was not clear why Adaptix made this extraordinary step on the eve of trial.
Ericsson’s response indicates that Adaptix took this action in response to receiving service on November 27 of Ericsson’s motion for sanctions. That motion was based on Adaptix bringing an action for infringing patent claims directed to optional portions of the LTE standard not practiced by Ericsson, claims that were invalid, and claims for which any relief would be against the public interest “particularly in light of Adaptix’s status as a patent assertion entity.” Ericsson asserts that Adaptix brought “unsubstantiated claims that lack merit … in a transparent attempt to leverage the threat of an ITC exclusion order into exorbitant royalties.”
At the end of the day, Ericsson does not oppose Adaptix’s motion to terminate the Investigation, but regrets that it cannot recover the cost for defending the action. Will be interesting to see what occurs in related district court litigations where the same patent is asserted.