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The United States International Trade Commission (ITC) is a quasi-judicial agency with broad investigative powers relating to trade practices.  These powers include the ability to investigate unfair trade practices relating to the importation of products that infringe valid U.S. patents — so-called “Section 337 actions” (Section 337 actions can encompass other conduct, but are commonly used to target patent infringement).  But because the ITC may only issue injunctive relief (via exclusion orders and cease & desist orders), and cannot award monetary damages, the assertion of standard-essential patents in Section 337 actions has become a subject of great debate.  Within about a month, the Commission will issue a Final Determination in Investigation No. 337-TA-794 (involving Samsung and Apple) that may address the propriety of asserting FRAND-pledged SEPs in Section 337 actions.  In the meantime, however, there are several ongoing ITC investigations where standard-essential patents are being asserted.  Below is a brief summary of where each of these cases currently stand:


Continue Reading A rundown of pending SEP-related Section 337 investigations at the U.S. International Trade Commission

CAFC

Motorola and Apple are currently facing off over patent-related issues in several ongoing judicial proceedings, including multiple appeals before the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.  One of these Federal Circuit appeals was brought by Apple over Judge Crabb’s dismissal of Apple’s claims that Motorola violated the antitrust laws and breached its contracts with SSOs in conducting its SEP-related licensing and enforcement activities.  But on January 25, Motorola filed a motion with the Federal Circuit to dismiss Apple’s appeal (or transfer it to the Seventh Circuit), asserting that the Federal Circuit lacks jurisdiction to hear the case.  While at first blush this seems like just a mundane dispute over civil procedure issues, a decision on this motion may have significant consequences for future FRAND-related proceedings.Continue Reading Motorola disputes Federal Circuit’s jurisdiction over Apple’s FRAND-related appeal, argues for dismissal or transfer

Germany

While much of the attention over standard-essential patent litigation focuses on disputes taking place in the United States, the U.S. is not the only venue seeing these showdowns.  SEP-related issues have also arisen in Australia, in Korea, and in Europe (both in the courts and in European Commission investigations).  The courts in Germany — which has recently become a hotbed for patent litigation — have developed a unique procedure for dealing with the assertion of standard essential patents.  Named for a 2009 decision by the Federal Supreme Court of Germany, this is commonly known as the “Orange Book” defense or procedure (or sometimes as the dolo agit or good faith defense).  In this post, we aim to provide a background of this case and some examples of cases where the Orange Book defense has been invoked.


Continue Reading A RANDom glance abroad: German Patent Courts and the “Orange Book” defense

Assertion of standard-essential patents are all the rage at the ITC these days, with an upcoming trial on InterDigital’s claims (Inv. No. 337-TA-800), another recent complaint filed by InterDigital, dueling Ericsson-Samsung complaints, and the highly anticipated Final Determination in ITC Inv. No. 337-TA-794 involving Apple and Samsung due in March.  And today, a company named Adaptix — a subsidiary of noted non-practicing entity Acacia Research — threw its hat into the ring, firing off a Section 337 complaint accusing Ericsson’s 4G LTE base stations of infringing U.S. Pat. No. 6,870,808, titled “Channel Allocation in Broadband Orthoganol Frequency-Division Multiple-Access/Space-Division Multiple-Access Networks.”  But this might not be your typical standard-essential patent case — it has a couple of twists.
Continue Reading Acacia Research subsidiary Adaptix files new ITC complaint accusing Ericsson of infringing 4G LTE-essential patent

[UPDATE]  Since this post was originally published on January 22, the deadline passed for the parties to submit extrinsic evidence and additional arguments supporting their respective interpretations of the Google-MPEG LA AVC/H.264 license agreement.  Microsoft submitted both a brief and a supporting Declaration of Lawrence A. Horn, who is the President and CEO of MPEG LA, LLC.  Mr. Horn’s declaration supports Microsoft’s argument (as detailed in our original post below) that the scope of the grant-back under the MPEG LA license agreement extends to all Affiliates of Google, not just to those specifically identified.  For its part, Motorola argues that the “scope” language of the MPEG LA agreement remains ambiguous, and that Mr. Horn’s declaration represents inadmissible hearsay because Motorola was unable to cross-examine him.

The parties’s respective briefs and Mr. Horn’s declaration may be accessed from the links below:

[/UPDATE]

Judge Robart’s forthcoming opinion in the Microsoft v. Motorola RAND breach of contract case in the Western District of Washington is highly anticipated by those who pay attention to standard-essential patent disputes, as it will likely provide a judicially-sanctioned roadmap for how to determine RAND terms and conditions in a given licensing situation.  But before he issues a written decision, a hearing is scheduled for January 28, during which Judge Robart will hear oral argument from Microsoft and Motorola regarding the implications that Google’s AVC/H.264 patent pool license agreement with MPEG-LA may have on the appropriate RAND terms for Motorola Mobility’s H.264-essential patent portfolio. (Google, of course, being the parent company of Motorola Mobility since it acquired Motorola in May 2012).


Continue Reading Preview: Motorola, Microsoft set to debate relevance of Google’s MPEG LA license agreement to RAND terms next week

Earlier this month, InterDigital Communications filed a Section 337 complaint with the ITC, alleging that Samsung, Nokia, ZTE, and Huawei infringed several of InterDigital’s 3G and 4G-essential patents.  As we noted in our earlier post on the matter, InterDigital included a statement regarding the public interest along with its complaint, attempting to preemptively assuage any public interest concerns the Commission may have due to the inclusion of standard-essential patents in the complaint.  Over the past two weeks, though, the proposed respondents have each filed their own public interest statements with the ITC, asserting a number of reasons why the public interest might be adversely affected by the institution of an investigation based on InterDigital’s complaint.
Continue Reading InterDigital, Nokia, others dispute public interest implications of 3G/4G patent assertions

Last week, the ITC released the public version of Order No. 42 in In the Matter of Certain Audiovisual Components and Products Containing the Same, Inv. No. 337-TA-837.  In this order (the confidential version of which issued back in October 2012), Administrative Law Judge David P. Shaw granted respondent Realtek Semiconductor’s motion to compel complainants LSI Corp. and Agere Systems to provide certain RAND-related discovery.  This includes information regarding LSI and Agere’s activities in standard-setting organizations, as well information about licensing and third-party products that practice the asserted patents.  This order provides some incremental guidance on the type of evidence that ALJs consider relevant to RAND-based affirmative defenses in Section 337 ITC actions.
Continue Reading Motion to compel RAND-related discovery granted (U.S.I.T.C. Inv. No. 337-TA-837)

On January 17, 2013, Magistrate Judge John D. Love issued an order in Network-1 Security Solutions, Inc. v. Alcatel-Lucent USA Inc., No 6:11-cv-492 (E.D. Tex.), granting the defendants’ motion to sever the case into several different actions.  Judge Love found that infringement allegations stemming from the defendants’ compliance with the same technology standard was insufficient to warrant joinder.  However, Judge Love found that in order to effectively manage the cases and preserve judicial resources, the cases would be consolidated for all pre-trial purposes except venue.


Continue Reading Compliance with same technology standard insufficient to warrant joinder of otherwise unrelated defendants (Network-1 Security Solutions v. Alcatel-Lucent)

Later this year, in the case of Apple Inc. v. Motorola Inc. (Nos. 2012-1548, -1549), the Federal Circuit is set to address several issues that could have a big effect on future licensing and assertion of standard-essential patents.  As explained in our previous post “catching up on” the details of this dispute, this appeal follows Judge Posner’s dismissal of both Apple’s and Motorola’s dueling infringement claims, which was based on the parties’ failure to prove entitlement to the remedies sought.  Because Motorola had asserted a FRAND-encumbered standard-essential patent against Apple’s UMTS-compliant products, the Federal Circuit is likely to decide at least two issues that may have widespread implications for SEP licensing and litigation for years to come: (1) whether injunctive relief may be an appropriate remedy for Apple’s alleged infringement of Motorola’s FRAND-pledged SEPs; and (2) how to calculate damages for Apple’s alleged infringement of Motorola’s FRAND-pledged SEPs.
Continue Reading Various amici weigh in on SEP-related issues in Apple-Motorola Federal Circuit appeal

Early in January we noted that a non-practicing entity named Steelhead Licensing had filed a number of complaints for patent infringement against various wireless device manufacturers and cellular carriers.  Of particular note in those suits was that the patent at issue in all of the actions — U.S. Pat. No. 5,491,834, entitled “Mobile Radio Handover Initiation Determination” — was previously owned by British Telecom, is due to expire next month, and (according to Steelhead, apparently) is essential to various 3G and 4G wireless communications standards.  On Friday, January 11, Steelhead expanded its assertion activities relating to the ‘834 patent, filing infringement actions against Acer, Amazon.com, Asustek, and Dell.
Continue Reading Steelhead Licensing expands cellular-essential patent assertion activities