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Magistrate Judge K. Nicole Mitchell of the Eastern District of Texas recently denied patent owner Cellular Communications Equipment LLC (“Cellular” or “CCE”) motion for summary judgment that its asserted patents were not essential to a cellular standard, ruling that there was a factual dispute based on statements made by patent owner Cellular during the litigation.  This case illustrates problems in loosely referring to standard essential patents generically as patents relevant to a standard or erroneously stating that a patent was “declared essential.”  Declarations that patent owners submit to standard setting bodies typically do not declare that patents are essential to the standard, but identify patents that may be essential to the standard and what licensing terms, if any, they would offer if the patent actually is essential.  A patent is not actually a “standard essential patent” or “SEP” unless it is “essential” to the standard under the standard setting body’s intellectual property rights (IPR) policy.

Further, this case illustrates that,  just because a patent is infringed by one way of implementing the standard does not mean that the patent covers every way to implement the standard and, thus, may be “essential” and subject to a standard-setting licensing commitment.

In sum, for convenience, speakers, writers and parties may loosely talk about a patent or patent portfolio as being SEP(s) as a short-hand for patents that were declared potentially an SEP.  But, when making statements on which a court, agency or other decisions may rely, it may be helpful to be more precise or provide a caveat that the term SEP is being used as a short-hand and does not mean that a patent actually is essential to the standard.
Continue Reading Judge Mitchell rules there are factual issues whether patent is “essential” to a standard (Cellular Eqpt v. ZTE)

Judge Gilstrap recently issued an Order rejecting the equitable defense of patent misuse in a case involving standard essential patents (SEPs) subject to a commitment to license them on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms.  Motorola Mobility LLC (Motorola) alleged that Saint Lawrence Communications LLC (St. Lawrence or SLC) was guilty of patent misuse by, among other things, requiring Motorola to take a worldwide license to FRAND-committed SEPs, using the threat of injunctive relief in Germany to coerce licensing of those SEPs, entering different license terms with different licensees and not disclosing effective royalties from licensing the SEPs under a patent pool when negotiating individual licenses.  This decision is another indication that competition law claims asserted against SEPs may not prevail when patent owners have followed traditional patent enforcement and licensing strategies or even if they breach of a FRAND commitment.  Rather, there must be something more egregious or deceptive with the particular patent owner’s conduct at issue to give rise to competition law claims that are required to address harm to competition beyond harm that can be addressed by more traditional patent or contract law remedies — e.g., a contract remedy for breach of a FRAND commitment or limits on patent remedies based on a FRAND commitment.
Continue Reading Judge Gilstrap rejects patent misuse defense to alleged FRAND-committed SEPs (St. Lawrence v. Motorola Mobility)

Today, Judge Selna issued on Order ruling on Ericsson’s motion to alter or amend his FRAND ruling. (See our Jan. 3, 2018 post summarizing FRAND royalty ruling).  Under the procedural posture of the Rule 52(b) motion for seeking modification of a judge’s bench trial findings of fact and law, Ericsson had to show that its proposed changes to that ruling were needed “to correct manifest errors of law or fact or to address newly discovered evidence or controlling law” or were not changes that “would not affect the outcome of the case or are immaterial to the court’s conclusions.” (Order at 2).  Given this difficult standard, Judge Selna only agreed to make minor word changes to his decision, which he will soon reissue with other clerical corrections and some corrections to be made based on TCL’s Rule 52(b) motions (which were also apparently minor changes).  To be clear: by “minor changes” we mean as far as significance in applying the decision to other cases between other parties; we could be mistaken and, moreover, have no comment on how significant the changes may be to the instant parties in this particular case.  The next substantive step in this case will be the Federal Circuit appeal that Ericsson already filed, but that has been stayed pending the outcome of the parties’ Rule 52(b) motions.
Continue Reading Judge Selna will make minor changes to FRAND ruling (TCL v. Ericsson)

Judge James V. Selna of the Central District of California (“C.D. Cal.”) recently released the redacted, 115-page public version of his Memo of Facts and Law with his FRAND determination in the TCL v. Ericsson SEP dispute concerning 2G, 3G and 4G cellular technology in the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (“ETSI”) standards along with his Final Judgment And Injunction, which injunction has detailed terms like one would find in a licensing agreement.

Judge Selna ultimately ruled that Ericsson’s licensing conduct did not breach its FRAND commitment, but that Ericsson’s proposed licensing terms were not FRAND.  Judge Selna rejected the FRAND methodologies and resulting FRAND royalty rates proposed by both TCL and Ericsson.  Judge Selna did his own FRAND methodology based on the methods and evidence presented by the parties, following mainly a modified version of a “top down” approach proposed by TCL.  The FRAND rates determined by Judge Selna fell about half-way between TCL and Ericsson’s proposals, though direct comparison is difficult.  For example, for Ericsson’s 4G SEPs, the royalty rates from the parties and court varied as to scope (e.g., blended global rate versus regional rate) and required some conversion to compare (e.g., Judge Selna computed an effective “unpacked” royalty that accounted for lump-sum payments and royalty floors in Ericsson’s offers):

4G SEP Royalty Rate
(Percentage of Mobile Phone’s Net Price)
TCL’s Proposed 4G Global Rate 0.16% (Blended global rate)
Court’s 4G Rates (by region) 0.450% (U.S.)
0.314% (Rest of World; No 4G Sales in Europe)
Ericsson Effective U.S. 4G Rates
(Court calculated from Option A and B offers)		 1.074% (Option A Effective U.S. Rate) or
1.988% (Option B Effective U.S. Rate)

We provide below a bullet-list summary of some key points from the decision as well as a (rather lengthy) detailed discussion of Judge Selna’s decision.  We consider this an important decision to read, and encourage you to do so, because it is one of the few decisions that describe a court’s analysis in determining a disputed FRAND royalty.  But we also believe this case provides only incremental development of the case law itself given the highly factual nature of the decision in this still developing area of law.  Judge Selna  acknowledged that trying to obtain “precision and absolute certainty” here was a “doomed undertaking.”  In other words: Learn from this decision, but do not assume it represents a definitive proper FRAND analysis and is representative of a FRAND royalty for all FRAND cases. Its one step in a continuing journey …
Continue Reading Judge Selna determines FRAND Rate and enters contract-type injunction on ETSI SEPs (TCL v. Ericsson)

European and U.S. competition authorities may be making a course correction toward a more balanced approach to standard essential patents (“SEPs”)  following contemporary enforcement activity that had favored implementers over patent holders.

Specifically, recent remarks by the new administration’s U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) antitrust head explained that patent hold-up by patent owners may not be as big an issue as some had suggested and that patent hold-out by implementers may be a bigger concern.  Indeed, he expressed concern about improper collusion among implementers within standard setting organizations (“SSOs”) to enact intellectual property rights (“IPR”) policies that unduly devalue patents  and undermine innovation.  These remarks from the new administration has caused many to question the viability of the IEEE ‘s 2015 IPR Policy change that was perceived as very implementer oriented, but not challenged by the prior DOJ administration. (See our Feb. 5, 2015 Post about the prior DOJ administration’s business review letter on the IEEE policy change).

Further, the European Commission (“EC”) recently issued non-binding guidance for SEPs that did not suggest bright line rules urged by implementers for negotiating SEP FRAND licenses–e.g., did not suggest component-level licensing and royalty base, rather than end product level—and reflects a balanced approach more consistent with long-standing industry custom and practice in implementing FRAND licensing commitments.

We provide a summary of these statements, but encourage you to read the DOJ remarks and EC guidance directly for yourself (they are not long), which may allow you to detect and avoid interpretive spin from those entrenched on either side of the issues.  For example, some have suggested that the EC guidelines support licensing at the component level; but that’s not what the EC guidelines actually say and its been reported that the EC intentionally declined to suggest component-level licensing in these guidelines.
Continue Reading U.S. and EU competition authorities may take a more balanced approach to SEPs

Judge Gilstrap recently ruled that  certain challenges to a damages expert’s testimony  went toward the weight a jury could give that testimony, rather than whether the testimony should be admitted.  Specific FRAND-related portions of the testimony that he would admit at trial include the following:

  • Expert could testify that the hypothetical FRAND royalty rate to be awarded for infringement damages (which presumes the patents are valid and infringed) would be higher than the royalty rate of a comparable FRAND license, which comparable license’s royalty rate may have been skewed low based on discounts made for litigation risks and costs.
  • Expert could testify about FRAND royalties that the accused infringer charges for its own SEPs.
  • Expert could testify about licenses negotiated in the context of German litigation and threat of injunction.

Judge Gilstrap indicated that the expert had sufficiently identified what he relied on and explained adjustments that he made to those proposed comparable licenses to account for differences from the hypothetical negotiated license.  The defendant’s challenges to that testimony goes to the weight the jury should give the testimony, not its admissibility.

Judge Gilstrap’s ruling is an interesting example of how FRAND litigation has matured since taking the main stage in Judge Robart’s first-of-its-kind FRAND royalty decision in Microsoft v. Motorola (see our May 1, 2013 post) and Judge Holderman’s following decision in In re Innovatio (see our Oct. 3, 2013 post).  Both of those 2013 decisions were based on, inter alia, a general failure of litigants to present sufficiently comparable licenses.  Since then, Federal Circuit decisions have leaned toward admitting comparable licenses where expert testimony sufficiently accounts for differences from the hypothetical negotiated license.

For example, the Federal Circuit’s 2014 Virnetx decision (a non-SEP case) counseled that, although “alleging loose or vague comparability … does not suffice,” a jury may consider comparable licenses where differences from the hypothetically negotiated license are explained to them (see our Sep. 17, 2014 post).  And the Federal Circuit’s 2015 Ericsson decision (an SEP FRAND case) stressed that, although real world licenses “are almost never perfectly analogous to the infringement action,” the jury may consider them if expert testimony accounts for “distinguishing facts when invoking them to value the patented invention.” (see our Dec. 5, 2015 post).  Litigants following the Federal Circuit’s guidance may find courts more willing to allow expert testimony on proposed comparable licenses despite their differences from the hypothetical negotiated license.Continue Reading Judge Gilstrap permits damages expert testimony that litigated FRAND royalty should be higher than comparable license’s FRAND royalty that was skewed low by litigation risk discount (St Lawrence v. ZTE)

Yesterday, the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) gave Notice that it has determined to review in part ALJ Essex’s decision concerning claim construction and standard essential patent (SEP) issues in the investigation whether Nokia infringes InterDigital 3GPP patents (see our May 12, 2015 post on ALJ Essex’s decision).  The ITC provided a list of questions …

We previously reported on a scheduling order governing FRAND and damages-related discovery in InterDigital’s two patent infringement lawsuits pending in Delaware against ZTE and Nokia Inc., Nokia Corp. and Microsoft Mobile Oy (MMO), respectively.  On Friday, the court entered a modified, agreed-to scheduling order that extends the time to complete such discovery by approximately seven…

Yesterday, a federal jury in Delaware concluded that ZTE’s accused 4G mobile devices did not infringe InterDigital’s U.S. Patent No. 7,941,151 (“the ‘151 Patent”).  This jury verdict comes a little less than six months after a different jury concluded that ZTE’s accused 4G mobile devices infringe three separate patents asserted by InterDigital in the case.…

Earlier this week, a Texas jury found that Apple’s iPhone and iPad products do not infringe patents owned by Core Wireless that are alleged to be essential to certain cellular standards adopted by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (“ETSI”).  The jury also found that Core Wireless did not breach its contractual obligation to offer a…