2013

This past Friday (Feb. 22) was the deadline for the public to submit comments to the Federal Trade Commission on the FTC’s consent decree that it entered into last month with Google and Motorola Mobility.  More than two dozen individuals, companies, and organizations chose to submit comments, and their submissions reflected a wide range of interests and opinions about issues relating to both standard-essential patent issues and Google’s search practices.

These comments may be accessed from the FTC’s web site.  In a future post, we will do a deep dive into some of the more interesting comments submitted.  In the meantime, after the jump is a list of the entities that submitted comments, along with links to their web sites:

On Friday we posted about the Answers filed by the respondents in In the Matter Certain Wireless Devices with 3G and/or 4G Capabilities and Components Thereof (Inv. No. 337-TA-868) — the case better known as InterDigital’s ITC action against Huawei, Nokia, Samsung, and ZTE.  And we’ve previously discussed how Huawei and ZTE are currently seeking an expedited determination of FRAND terms in Delaware district court, where they also expalined that they would seek to stay the ITC action.  Today, Huawei and ZTE’s motion to stay the ITC investigation hit the docket (it was actually filed on Friday).  Huawei and ZTE seek to halt the ITC investigation pending (1) the outcome of Inv. No. 337-TA-800 (involving the same parties and some of the same patents); and (2) a determination in Delaware of the terms of a FRAND license to InterDigital’s patents.
Continue Reading Huawei, ZTE seek stay of InterDigital 3G/4G ITC investigation

Even though the trial in the Microsoft-Motorola RAND dispute took place over three months ago, there’s been a lot going on in Washington lately.  In addition to the arguments regarding the relevance of the Google-MPEG LA AVC/H.264 patent license agreement, recall that a couple weeks ago, Judge James L. Robart granted Motorola’s request to submit additional information that may be relevant to determining the RAND rate.  Late Friday, both Motorola and Microsoft filed these documents with the court — documents that may actually raise more issues than they help resolve (and may ultimately have no bearing on Judge Robart’s decision).
Continue Reading Microsoft-Motorola RAND case update: Microsoft accuses Motorola of violating the Google/FTC consent decree, and a potential H.264 license agreement in Germany

Lately, there’s been a lot of activity in InterDigital-related cases, both in district courts and the ITC.  Aside from the hearing in Inv. No. 337-TA-800 (scheduled to wrap up today), the respondents named in InterDigital’s latest complaint (Inv. No. 337-TA-868) — Huawei, Nokia, Samsung, and ZTE — filed their answers yesterday.  Given InterDigital’s assertion of 3G/4G cellular standard-essential patents here, it comes as no surprise to see that in addition to customary patent infringement defenses, the respondents have asserted several FRAND-specific defenses.  Below is a quick rundown of the FRAND-specific defenses asserted by the individual respondents.


Continue Reading Huawei/Samsung/ZTE answer InterDigital’s ITC complaint, assert FRAND-related defenses

Last week, Judge James L. Robart briefly reopened the trial record in the Microsoft-Motorola RAND breach of contract case, in order to allow the parties to submit additional evidence regarding the RAND rate for Motorola’s patents.  Yesterday, Judge Robart issued another short minute order, this time allowing additional briefing on a different issue.  Yesterday’s order concerns the terms of Google’s license with the MPEG LA AVC/H.264 patent pool, which Microsoft claims are dispositive of the appropriate RAND rate for Motorola’s H.264 patents.  (For more background on this particular issue, see our earlier post on the parties’  briefing leading up to oral arguments.).  Judge Robart has now allowed the parties to submit letter briefs of up to six pages by March 1 in light of certain “novel arguments” regarding the MPEG LA agreement that were apparently raised by the parties at the January 28 oral argument.
Continue Reading Microsoft-Motorola judge orders additional briefing on how Google-MPEG LA license agreement may affect RAND terms for Motorola’s H.264 patents

Today, February 20, 2013, in Brilliant Instruments, Inc. v. GuideTech, Inc., No. 2012-1018, the Federal Circuit (Dyk (dissenting-in-part), Moore, and Reyna) reversed the Northern District of California’s prior grant of summary judgment of no infringement under the doctrine of equivalents based on fact issues regarding whether a capacitor that was “part of” a…

CAFCToday, Motorola Mobility filed a reply brief in support of its efforts to dismiss Apple’s Federal Circuit FRAND appeal (or at least transfer it to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals).  As you’ll recall, a few weeks ago, Motorola filed a unique motion to dismiss Apple’s appeal, claiming  the Federal Circuit lacked jurisdiction because (for more info, see our original post on Motorola’s motion).  Apple filed an opposition, asserting that the case was properly appealed to the Federal Circuit.  In its relatively short reply, Motorola targets two particular assertions that Apple claims vest the Federal Circuit with jurisdiction: (1) that Apple’s declaratory judgment complaint was filed “in response” to a hypothetical complaint of patent infringement; and (2) that the dismissal of certain Apple claims without prejudice does not divest the Federal Circuit of jurisdiction.


Continue Reading Apple, Motorola continue fight over Federal Circuit FRAND jurisdiction: Motorola’s Reply Brief

In early January, InterDigital filed a Section 337 complaint in the U.S. International Trade Commission against Huawei, Nokia, Samsung, and ZTE, accusing those companies’ 3G/4G-compliant smartphones and tablets of infringing several InterDigital patents (this is now ITC Inv. No. 337-TA-868).  Because the ITC cannot award monetary relief, it’s common for complainants to also file corresponding infringement actions in district court, which InterDigital did here in the District of Delaware.  In order to relieve ITC respondents from the burden of litigating in multiple venues simultaneously, 28 U.S.C. § 1659 allows respondents to seek a mandatory stay of the district court action pending the outcome of the ITC case.  Generally, respondents seek such a stay.  But here, neither Huawei nor ZTE have sought a stay — in fact, they have asked the Delaware district court to expedite discovery on FRAND issues.  It’s an interesting strategic move in which they leverage recent guidance from government agencies and other pending litigation, and it’s a strategy that (if successful) may be followed by many more ITC respondents in the future.
Continue Reading Huawei, ZTE seek expedited FRAND determinations in InterDigital 3G/4G standard-essential patent dispute

e.d. tex caseIt’s well-known that concerns about patent assertions by non-practicing entities were part of the impetus for the America Invents Act of 2011.  In order to prevent multiple unrelated defendants from being added to the same infringement suit on the sole basis that they are accused of infringing the same patent, the AIA added the so-called “misjoinder” provision (35 U.S.C. § 299) to the patent laws.  Briefly, Section 299 provides that defendants are properly joined if (1) infringement is asserted against the defendants based on the same transaction or occurrence or as to the same accused product or process, and (2) questions of fact common to all defendants will arise in the action.  Over the past year and a half, courts have been grappling with evaluating whether otherwise unrelated defendants are properly joined in infringement actions.  In his recent ruling in an Eastern District of Texas case involving IEEE 802.3 Ethernet technology, Magistrate John D. Love held that standards-compliant system-on-a-chip (SoC) suppliers may be properly joined with their customers under Section 299.
Continue Reading E.D. Texas court ruling shows “system-on-a-chip”-based infringement accusations can satisfy AIA’s joinder rules (U.S. Ethernet v. Samsung)