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Back in June, we alerted you to a jury verdict handed down in a patent case in the Eastern District of Texas, where the jury awarded Ericsson several million dollars as compensation for infringement of several of its 802.11-essential patents by several manufacturers of WiFi-compliant products and components.  At the time, we noted that the jury only addressed issue of validity, infringement, and damages, with SEP-specific issues being potentially left for presiding Judge Leonard Davis to decide.  (In fact, the court held a bench trial on RAND issues on June 12).  The parties filed post-trial motions for judgment as a matter of law on several issues, and yesterday, Judge Davis issued a lengthy Memorandum Opinion and Order broadly upholding the jury’s verdict.

[13.08.06 (Dkt 615) Ericsson v. D-Link Order on Post-Trial Motions]

As we suspected, some RAND obligation-related issues reared their heads — but Judge Davis rejected the defendants’ RAND-based arguments and defenses.  In doing so, he made some statements that might be construed as a marked departure from the route taken by Judge Robart in the Microsoft-Motorola case.  After the jump, we’ll take a look at what Judge Davis concluded with respect to Ericsson’s RAND obligations.Continue Reading Rebutting Judge Robart? E.D. Tex. Judge Leonard Davis upholds jury damages award on WiFi SEPs, dismisses RAND-related issues (Ericsson v. D-Link)

Back in January, we alerted you to a patent infringement case brought in the U.S. International Trade Commission by Acacia Research subsidiary Adaptix.  Adaptix accused Ericsson of infringing U.S. Pat. No. 6,870,808, which Adaptix asserted to be essential to the ETSI 4G Long-Term Evolution (LTE) wireless standard.  The ITC later instituted the investigation as…

A couple weeks ago, we posted about an interesting pretrial damages ruling in a patent infringement case (actually, several cases) brought by non-practicing entity Wi-LAN against a number of standards-compliant device makers (Sony, Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent, and HTC).  But yesterday, an Eastern District of Texas jury decided that the damages issue was irrelevant, finding that all…

Over the past few years, courts have begun cracking down on improper damages theories.  The Federal Circuit’s 2012 opinion in LaserDynamics v. Quanta is instructive on this point, noting that in the absence of evidence that the patented functionality is the source of the demand for the entire product, then damages must be based on…

Over the past couple weeks, a jury trial was held in Tyler, Texas on Ericsson’s November 2010 complaint that wireless equipment makers D-Link Corp., Belkin International, Netgear, Acer, Gateway, Dell, and Toshiba infringe several Ericsson patents related to the IEEE 802.11 wireless networking standard and 802.11-compliant equipment (case no. 6:10-cv-00473).  Yesterday, the jury returned its…

If anyone needed more evidence that the U.S. International Trade Commission is paying a lot of attention to standard-essential patents and FRAND-related issues, they received some yesterday.  The Office of Unfair Import Investigations (OUII), a neutral third party who commonly participates in ITC investigations as a representative of the public interest, notified the ITC…

For the last few months, Samsung and Ericsson have been engaged in a wide-ranging patent infringement skirmish, both in the Eastern District of Texas and in the U.S. International Trade Commission (Inv. Nos. 337-TA-862, 337-TA-866).  Many of the infringement assertions in these cases relate to the 4th-generation Long-Term Evolution (LTE) wireless communications standard, as well as other wireless communications standards promulgated by ETSI and IEEE.  Earlier this week, Samsung filed its Answer and Counterclaims in response to Ericsson’s complaint in case no. 6:12-cv-00894 in the Eastern District of Texas.

Pulling no punches, Samsung not only accuses Ericsson of breaching its FRAND obligations (an accusation it has previously made), but also asserts additional patents against Ericsson — including patents already being asserted in the ITC.  And notably, Samsung also paints Ericsson as a non-practicing entity that is trying to engage in patent hold up — Samsung states that Ericsson “now feels unhinged as a non-practicing entity in the mobile phone market to extort vastly unreasonable and discriminatory license fees,” and that it “seeks to ignore over a decade of licensing history between the companies and to travel down a new road as an NPE extracting irrational sums from Samsung under threat of an ITC exclusion order.”  Rhetoric aside, though, the meat of Samsung’s answer is really about its FRAND-related defenses and infringement counterclaims.


Continue Reading Samsung-Ericsson standard-essential patent battle heats up as Samsung asserts additional patents in E.D. Tex.

ITC LogoOn Friday, March 8, Ericsson filed the (redacted) public version of its answer to Samsung’s Complaint and the Notice of Investigation in In the Matter of Certain Wireless Communications Equipment and Articles Therein (Inv. No. 337-TA-866).  This ITC Section 337 investigation is based on a January 2013 complaint from Samsung that alleges Ericsson’s 4G LTE-compatible base stations infringe several Samsung LTE-essential patents.

Given Samsung’s assertion of standard-essential patents, it’s no surprise that Ericsson’s complaint includes FRAND-based defenses.  
Continue Reading Ericsson to ITC: Samsung breached its ETSI FRAND obligations for asserted 4G LTE patents (Inv. No. 337-TA-866)

FTCYesterday we covered several public comments submitted to the FTC by various professional organizations and trade/industry associations surround the FTC-Google consent decree.  Today, we’re here to tackle the submissions from several large companies that chose to comment on the FTC order.  These companies include Apple, Ericsson, Microsoft, Qualcomm, and Research in Motion.
Continue Reading FTC-Google public comments round-up #2: Tech companies have their say

ITC LogoYesterday the U.S. International Trade Commission announced that it has instituted a Section 337 investigation titled Certain Wireless Communications Base Stations and Components Thereof, Inv. No. 337-TA-871.  This investigation is based on a complaint filed on January 24, 2013 by Adaptix, Inc. (a subsidiary of noted publicly-traded non-practicing entity Acacia Research) against Ericsson.  The…