Yesterday, the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) gave Notice that it has determined to review in part ALJ Essex’s decision concerning claim construction and standard essential patent (SEP) issues in the investigation whether Nokia infringes InterDigital 3GPP patents (see our May 12, 2015 post on ALJ Essex’s decision).  The ITC provided a list of questions to which the parties and interested persons should submit comment by July 10, 2015 (limited to 125 pages not counting attachments) and reply submissions by July 20, 2015 (limited to 75 pages not counting attachments).

Claim Construction Estoppel Issue.  Recall that this case has a rather lengthy history that includes a trip to the Federal Circuit and remand back for the instant remand proceedings.  ALJ Essex found that, for procedural reasons based on the authorized scope of the remand proceedings, the remand proceedings were bound by claim constructions entered earlier in the investigation as to claim limitations “successively [transmits/transmitted] signals” notwithstanding those terms being construed differently in other related litigation where non-infringement or no violation was found (see our Feb. 19, 2015 post on the 800 investigation and Sep. 2, 2014 post on the 868 investigation).  The ITC has decided to review this claim construction issue and posed three specific questions on it:

  1. Have Respondents waived any reliance on the application of the Commission’s construction in the 800 and 868 investigations of the limitation “successively [transmits/transmitted] signals?”
  2. Do the Commission’s determinations in the 800 and/or 868 investigation constitute an intervening change of controlling legal authority such that the Commission should apply the construction of “successively [transmits/transmitted] signals” as found in those investigations in determining infringement in this investigation?
  3. What evidence exists in the record of this investigation with respect to whether the accused products satisfy the “successively [transmits/transmitted] signals” limitation as construed by the Commission in the 800 and 868 investigations?

SSO-Obligation (FRAND) Issues.  Recall that ALJ Essex found that Respondents had not shown that the patent owner’s standard setting organization (SSO) obligation had been triggered by a showing that the patents actually were essential to the ETSI standard at issue.  Further, he found that ETSI had rejected limiting exclusionary relief and deferred to resolution in courts, so the patent owner seeking exclusionary relief in itself did not violate its SSO obligation.  He found the focus should be on the particular SSO obligation at issue, rather than undue reliance on vague public policy concerns about patent holdup and there was no evidence of actual patent holdup in this case.  ALJ Essex also found that the accused infringers had committed patent hold-out after they lost a non-infringement ruling on appeal in this case, at which time they should have negotiated a license and there was no showing that the patent owner’s offered license in negotiation was not fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) under the SSO obligation.

The ITC has posed nine questions on the SSO-obligation (or FRAND) issues:

4.  Please state and explain your position on whether, for purposes of the Commission’s consideration of of the statutory public interest factors, InterDigital has in effect asserted that the patents in question are FRAND-encumbered, standard-essential patents.

5.  Please state and explain your position on whether InterDigital has offered Respondents licensing terms that reflect the value of its own patents.

6.  What portion of the accused devices is allegedly covered by the asserted claims?  Do the patents in question relate to relatively minor features of the accused devices?

7.  Please state and explain your position on the legal significance of InterDigital’s alleged willingness to accept an arbitral determination of FRAND terms with respect to the patents in question.

8.  Please state and explain your position on the legal significance of InterDigital’s alleged unwillingness to obtain a judicial determination of FRAND terms with respect to the patents in question.

9.  Please state and explain your position on whether Respondents have shown themselves willing to take licenses to the patents in question on FRAND terms.

10.  Do Respondents’ alleged delaying tactics in negotiating with InterDigital provide sufficient evidence of reverse hold-up, regardless of Respondents’ offers to license only InterDigital’s U.S. patent portfolio?

11.  Do Respondents’ licensing counteroffers satisfy the requirements of the ETSI IPR Policy?

12.  Please state and explain your position on whether the RID [i.e., ALJ Essex’s final initial determination on remand] equates patent infringement and reverse hold-up.

These questions and the ITC’s ultimate resolution of the issues promises to result in one of the most important ITC decisions in litigating SEPs in the ITC, and perhaps elsewhere.