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Last week, it was reported that Apple won a decision against Samsung in Tokyo, Japan, where a judge ruled that Samsung failed to negotiate in good faith with Apple before bringing patent infringement claims over its standard-essential patents.  Until today, the court’s actual ruling was not publicly available.  But yesterday, Apple submitted a “Notice of New Facts” and a redacted copy of a translation of the Tokyo court’s decision to the U.S. International Trade Commission in ITC Inv. No. 337-TA-794, and this submission hit the ITC’s docket this morning.

Recall that the -794 case is the ITC’s investigation over Apple’s alleged infringement of several Samsung patents (including two 3G cellular standard-essential patents), and that a Final Determination by the Commission is due no later than this Thursday, March 7 — and that the issue of the propriety of issuing an exclusion order for standard-essential patent infringement has been hotly debated here.  Apple argues that the Tokyo court’s decision and factual findings “underscore that it would be against the public interest to issue an exclusionary remedy to Samsung on declared-essential patents.”Continue Reading Apple cites recent Japanese court ruling as evidence against standard-essential patent exclusion order (ITC Inv. No. 337-TA-794)

Earlier this week we noted that Huawei and ZTE have asked the ITC to stay its investigation into InterDigital’s complaint of 3G/4G standard-essential patent infringement.  This was done in part because Huawei and ZTE have requested that the District Court of Delaware to expedite a determination of a FRAND rate for InterDigital’s patents.  Yesterday, InterDigital filed virtually identical opposition briefs in both cases (Opp. to Huawei / Opp. to ZTE), in which it urged the court to deny the motions — arguing that it is improper for Huawei and ZTE “to seek a purely hypothetical and advisory opinion in the form of an expedited ‘FRAND rate’ determination” while still maintaining an ability to refuse to pay in the event the patents are later found invalid or non-essential/not infringed.  This is an interesting issue surrounding FRAND licensing that has been the topic of much debate lately.
Continue Reading InterDigital calls Huawei/ZTE’s requests for expedited FRAND determinations “impractical” and “improper”

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

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

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

ITC LogoAs we noted earlier this week, the ITC is currently holding the evidentiary hearing in its investigation surrounding InterDigital’s 3G standard-essential patent infringement complaint against Nokia, Huawei, and ZTE (Inv. No. 337-TA-800).  As with many ITC hearings, much of the information is kept out of the public record (and that’s particularly true for FRAND-related issues, where sensitive licensing data is often discussed).  But today, the ITC just released the public version of Order No. 70, the confidential version of which originally issued way back in September 2012.  In this order, ALJ David P. Shaw ordered InterDigital and Nokia to both produce various information relating to the FRAND affirmative defenses raised by Nokia in the case, including license agreements, license negotiation documents, and other documents relating to FRAND.
Continue Reading InterDigital, Nokia ordered to produced FRAND-related and licensing documents in ITC case (337-TA-800)

Yesterday Apple filed its opposition to Motorola’s motion to dismiss or transfer for lack of jurisdiction in Federal Circuit appeal No. 2013-1150.  This is Apple’s appeal of Judge Crabb’s dismissal of the Apple-Motorola FRAND/antitrust action (W.D. Wis. No. 3:10-cv-00178)).  Apple contends that the Federal Circuit has jurisdiction over Apple’s appeal of the dismissal of its declaratory judgment claims because (1) the hypothetical Motorola complaint at which Apple’s declaratory judgment claim was directed would be for patent infringement, and (2) the district’s court’s decision to dismiss the patent-specific DJ claims without prejudice does not deprive the Federal Circuit of jurisdiction.  As we anticipated in our post on Motorola’s motion to dismiss/transfer, some of Apple’s arguments in its opposition raise some interesting questions about whether jurisdiction over this appeal will be consistent with past and potential future appeals of orders in the Microsoft-Motorola RAND case.
Continue Reading Apple: Federal Circuit has exclusive jurisdiction over Apple-Motorola FRAND/antitrust appeal

ITC LogoThe statute that governs the U.S. International Trade Commission’s jurisdiction over patent infringement complaints requires the ITC to resolve its investigations into such complaints “at the earliest practicable time”  Typically, ITC investigations will take anywhere from 12-18 months (depending on complexity, number of patents, etc.) from the institution of the investigation until the “target date,”…

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  • The global patent battle between Apple and Samsung continues, both on the SEP and non-SEP front.  The U.S. International Trade Commission recently issued a notice that it will review an Administrative Law Judge’s prior finding that Samsung infringed several non-SEP Apple patents, and also remanded part of the case back to the ALJ.  (More

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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