ETSI

Subscribe to ETSI via RSS

Today, U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Michael Froman issued his long-anticipated decision regarding the U.S. International Trade Commission’s exclusion order in ITC Inv. No. 337-TA-794 involving Samsung and Apple.  And as you may have heard by now, the verdict is…

The exclusion order has been “disapproved of” — i.e., overturned, vetoed, not going to go into…

A month ago, we alerted you to ALJ David P. Shaw’s Initial Determination finding no violation of Section 337 in In the Matter of Certain Wireless Devices with 3G Capabilities and Components Thereof, Inv. No. 337-TA-800 — the ITC’s investigation into InterDigital’s accusations that Huawei, Nokia, and ZTE infringed several 3G-essential InterDigital patents.  Yesterday, the ITC finally released the public version of the ~450 page Initial Determination.

[337-TA-800 Initial Determination (PUBLIC)]

As we noted in our post on the parties’ respective petitions for review, while the ALJ found no infringement of any valid patent claims (and therefore no violation of Section 337), he did address the Respondents’ FRAND-related defenses — and made some interesting findings.  After the jump, we’ll take a quick look at these findings, which begin on page 417 of the Initial Determination.Continue Reading ITC releases public version of ALJ’s Initial Determination in InterDigital 3G patent case (Inv. No. 337-TA-800)

Last week, we noted that the Federal Circuit will hold a September 11 oral argument in Apple and Motorola’s appeals of Judge Posner’s June 2012 decision to dismiss the parties’ competing infringement suits.  The “Posner appeal” will provide the Federal Circuit with the opportunity to weigh in on SEP issues in a patent infringement context, such as how the FRAND framework may constrain damages, and whether a party with a FRAND commitment can ever satisfy the eBay standard for an injunction.  But this appeal is not the only one involving Apple, Motorola, and FRAND/SEP issues that is pending before the Federal Circuit.

Also last week, Apple filed its opening brief in this other Federal Circuit appeal — the appeal of Judge Barbara Crabb’s November 2012 decision to dismiss Apple’s FRAND-related breach of contract suit on the eve of trial (after, at least in Judge Crabb’s eyes, Apple failed to commit to entering into a FRAND license at the rate she might set — see this link for a brief refresher on the details of this particular case).  The case before Judge Crabb (and consequently, this appeal) is more like Microsoft’s original complaint in the Microsoft-Motorola case, as opposed to the case before Judge Posner — there are no infringement claims, only claims brought by Apple that relate to Motorola’s alleged violation of its FRAND commitments (breach of contract, antitrust, etc.).  Apple frames the issues in this appeal as follows:

  1. Apple provided evidence that Motorola violated § 2 of the Sherman Act by making deceptive FRAND commitments and by failing to timely disclose its intellectual property. The Noerr-Pennington doctrine immunizes a party from antitrust liability only where the challenged conduct is the petitioning of a government entity. Did the district court err in holding that Apple’s antitrust claim was barred by the Noerr-Pennington doctrine?
  2. Apple would not commit to accept a license offer from Motorola without knowing the price. Did the district court err by dismissing Apple’s contract claims on that basis, where Apple had no contractual obligation to accept any offer from Motorola?
  3. Apple asserted three declaratory judgment claims that would have settled uncertainty regarding Motorola’s patent rights and obligations. Did the district court err in refusing to adjudicate those claims?
  4. Does this Court have exclusive appellate jurisdiction over this appeal because the suit encompasses declaratory judgment claims relating to Motorola’s patent suit?

According to Apple, the answer to each of these questions is a resounding yes.  After the jump, we’ll take a look at Apple’s brief in a bit more detail.
Continue Reading Apple files opening appellate brief in second Motorola/FRAND-related Federal Circuit appeal

About a month ago, Administrative Law Judge David Shaw issued a Notice of Initial Determination in ITC Inv. No. 337-TA-800, concluding that InterDigital failed to prove that Respondents Huawei, Nokia, and ZTE infringed any valid patent claims that InterDigital asserted as essential to 3G cellular standards (several claims of one patent were found infringed, but…

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…

This past Friday, Judge Richard Andrews of the District Court of Delaware held a hearing on InterDigital’s motions to dismiss several FRAND-related counterclaims in three district court cases InterDigital brought against Huawei, ZTE, and Nokia over 4G-essential patents.  For a brief refresher on the issues raised in InterDigital’s motions to dismiss — which have been…

Earlier this week, we took a quick look at the U.S. International Trade Commission’s landmark opinion in In the Matter of Certain Electronic Devices, Including Wireless Communication Devices, Portable Music and Data Processing Devices, and Tablet Computers (Inv. No. 337-TA-794) — and we promised an annotated version of the Commission’s rather lengthy opinion.  Well, without…

Late last week, the ITC finally released the public version of its Final Determination and Commission Opinion in In the Matter of Certain Electronic Devices, Including Wireless Communication Devices, Portable Music and Data Processing Devices, and Tablet Computers (Inv. No. 337-TA-794) — the case where the Commission last month issued a controversial exclusion order based on Apple’s infringement of a Samsung 3G-essential patent.  The document, linked to below, includes both the Commission’s determination of a violation of Section 337 and its decision to issue an exclusion order despite the fact that Samsung had previously pledged to license the patent at issue on FRAND terms, along with a dissent by Commissioner Dean A. Pinkert from the decision to issue an exclusion order.

[337-TA-794 Commission Opinion (Public Version)]

As you can see, the Commission’s opinion is long and detailed, and we are in the midst of preparing an annotated version of the opinion that we’ll be posting later this week (similar to what we did with the Microsoft-Motorola RAND opinion).  But after the jump, we’ll give you a quick overview of the Commission’s determination and the dissent’s views on the FRAND and SEP-related public interest issues.


Continue Reading ITC releases public version of the Commission opinion (and dissent) in Samsung-Apple case (337-TA-794)

On Friday, U.S. International Trade Commission Administrative Law Judge David P. Shaw issued a Notice of Initial Determination in In the Matter of Certain Wireless Devices with 3G Capabilities and Components Thereof, Inv. No. 337-TA-800.  This investigation was originally instituted nearly two years ago based on a complaint filed by InterDigital against Huawei, Nokia, ZTE, and LG, in which InterDigital accused the companies of infringing several InterDigital patents alleged to be essential to various 3G cellular communications standards.  The evidentiary hearing was held in January 2013, and the case involves the intersection of a two issues that have drawn a lot of attention lately — the assertion of standard-essential patents at the ITC (and what if any relevance FRAND licensing obligations have to the proceedings), as well as patent infringement cases brought by non-practicing entities (InterDigital is an NPE that has been deemed a “patent troll” by some, while others take a more favorable view of the company’s activities).

So far, it appears that InterDigital’s SEP infringement assertions have failed (at least for now).  While the public version of ALJ Shaw’s Initial Determination won’t become available for at least a few weeks, Friday’s Notice indicates that ALJ Shaw found no violations of Section 337 with respect to any of the seven remaining asserted patents. 
Continue Reading ITC rules against InterDigital’s claims of 3G-essential patent infringement in preliminary finding

Earlier this month, the ITC issued a landmark decision and exclusion order, ruling that certain Apple products should be excluded from entry into the United States because they infringe a Samsung 3G-essential patent.  As we explained in a follow-up post, the ITC doesn’t have the final word, though — by law, the President has the power to disapprove of an exclusion order for public policy reasons.  (This power has since been delegated to the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR).)  In a high-stakes, high-profile case such as Samsung-Apple, you’d expect the parties to continue the fight at every level — and sure enough, that’s what has happened.

As noted by Florian Mueller of FOSS Patents, last week both Apple and Samsung submitted arguments to the USTR.  Mr. Mueller got his hands on public, redacted versions of the documents, which we’ve linked to below:

After the jump, we’ll take a more in-depth look at each party’s arguments.


Continue Reading Apple, Samsung take their standard-essential patent battle to the U.S. Trade Representative