Yesterday, Administrative Law Judge Essex issued a one-page notice of initial determination holding that Nokia’s 3G mobile handsets infringe the asserted claims of InterDigital’s U.S. Patent Nos. 7,190,966 and 7,286,847 (“the ‘847 Patent”) in the International Trade Commission’s investigation styled In the Matter of Certain 3G Mobile Handsets and Components Thereof (ITC Inv. No. 337-TA-613).  In the one page notice, the Judge expressly relied upon a standard adopted by 3GPP in concluding that Nokia’s handsets meet the limitations of the one ‘847 Patent claim asserted by InterDigital:

It is held that the 3GPP standard supports a finding that the pilot signal (P-CPICH) satisfies the claim limitation ‘synchronize to the pilot signal’ as recited in the asserted claim of the ‘847 patent by synchronizing to either the P-SCH or S-SCH signals under the Commission’s construction of that claim limitation.

Judge Essex also held “that there is no evidence of patent hold-up, that there is evidence of reverse hold-up, and that public interest does not preclude issuance of an exclusion order.”

No written memorandum opinion has been made available. To the extent that a more detailed opinion on the issues exists in redacted form, the parties will have a certain period of time, as directed by the court, to propose redactions to protect any confidential business information from the version of the opinion that will be made available to the public.