Germany’s Mannheim Regional Court announced this morning that Apple did not infringe the IPCom patents alleged to be essential to the 3G/UMTS standard. As discussed in our February 6, 2013 post, IPCom was seeking over $2 billion from Apple for infringement of European Patent EP1841268 and related German patent DE19910239 alleged to be essential
European Commission sends preliminary Statement of Objections to Motorola, finding potential SEP-related antitrust violation
We generally focus on U.S.-specific standard-essential patent issues here at the Essential Patent Blog, but often there are some international developments that are worth noting. Today brings us one of those, as the European Commission announced that it has sent a Statement of Objections to Motorola Mobility as part of its investigation into Motorola’s potential
RANDomness
- The Federal Circuit denied Apple’s petition for an en banc rehearing of its prior denial of a preliminary injunction against Samsung based on Apple’s failure to demonstrate a “causal nexus” between infringement and irreparable harm. However, Apple still has an appeal pending of a denial of a permanent injunction against Samsung. (Bloomberg)
- Yesterday
RANDomness
- The Federal Circuit recently invalidated three e-commerce “shopping cart” patents that noted non-practicing entity Soverain Software has asserted over the past decade against a variety of web retailers. ArsTechnica reports on the story of Newegg’s litigation strategy, and includes an interesting interview with Newegg’s Chief Legal Officer (and Dow Lohnes alumnus) Lee Cheng. (ArsTechnica
A RANDom glance abroad: German Patent Courts and the “Orange Book” defense
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