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The Court presiding over Wi-LAN’s patent infringement litigation against HTC and Exedea recently entered an order memorializing the court’s oral rulings on various pre-trial motions and disputes during a September 26, 2013 pre-trial hearing, including whether Wi-LAN’s alleged failure to offer a license on FRAND terms remained an issue in the case after defendants voluntarily …

The National Academy of Sciences has published a 140-page report entitled “Patent Challenges for Standard-Setting in the Global Economy: Lessons from Information and Communication Technology.”  The report presents several suggestions to standard setting organizations (SSOs) or government bodies regarding standard essential patents (SEPs) in a few topic areas:

  • Interpretation of FRAND: Suggests that SSOs

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Please join the Essential Patent Blog and Kelley Drye & Warren LLP for a complimentary webinar on Thursday, Oct. 17 at 12:00pm Eastern to discuss the import of Judge Holderman’s recent RAND decision in the In re Innovatio IP Ventures, LLC Patent Litigation.  Judge Holderman’s October 3rd decision is only the second U.S. district…

Today the Federal Trade Commission made its long-awaited announcement that it has voted to seek public comment on a proposal to conduct a Section 6(b) study of patent assertion entities and their impact on innovation and competition.  The FTC proposes this study based on requests from the public and Senators as well as the FTC’s…

The week leading up to Labor Day was a relatively quiet one on the SEP litigation front, with the exception of the ongoing Microsoft-Motorola RAND jury trial in Seattle (scheduled to wrap up and go to the jury tomorrow).  Late last week, the ITC also postponed until tomorrow the decision whether to review the ALJ’s…

A couple weeks ago, we noted that Ericsson had submitted a Notice of New Authority in its ITC case against Samsung (Inv. No. 337-TA-862) concerning the USTR’s recent disapproval of the exclusion order in ITC Inv. No. 337-TA-794.  In this Notice of New Authority, Ericsson requested that presiding Administrative Law Judge David P. Shaw…

When Judge Robart issued his summary judgment order last week in the Microsoft-Motorola case, we noted that he ordered the parties to submit further briefing on Microsoft’s allegation that Motorola breached its RAND obligations to Microsoft (at least in part) by failing to offer a RAND license to Microsoft’s WiFi chip supplier, Marvell Semiconductor:

As the court understands it, Microsoft will argue to the jury that Motorola failed to grant a license to Marvell, and if Motorola had granted such a license, Motorola would then be precluded from seeking a license from Microsoft for the SEPs at issue. This argument requires a legal basis. The argument is premised on the notion that, legally, Motorola’s ability to seek a license from Microsoft would be exhausted by granting a license to Marvell. This issue is not explored in the parties’ summary judgment briefing. Thus, the parties may provide three-page letter briefs no later than August 16, 2013, on the legal grounds for Microsoft’s assertion that a Motorola-Marvell license would preclude Motorola from seeking a license from Microsoft. Additionally, no later than August 16, 2013, the parties may propose jury instructions on this issue.

On Friday, the parties submitted letter briefs in response to this order (links below).  As we alluded to in last week’s post, this issue raises some interesting questions on what types of behavior and licensing restrictions are proper during FRAND licensing negotiations — questions that we’ll get into after the jump.

Continue Reading FRAND licensing, chip suppliers, and the interplay of patent exhaustion / defensive suspension clauses

Ericsson is a company that holds a significant number of standard-essential patents, and often seeks to monetize and enforce them.  (They were just awarded infringement damages in Texas, and they’re engaged in an SEP duel with Samsung in the ITC and in Texas).  It wasn’t surprising, then, when Ericsson last week suggested a framework for…

The U.S. Trade Representative’s recent disapproval of the ITC’s exclusion order in Inv. No. 337-TA-794 has generated a lot of discussion and uncertainty about the future enforcement of standard-essential patents at the U.S. International Trade Commission. But it seems generally accepted that going forward, both the Commission and litigants are going to have do…

The world of standard-essential patent litigation has seen some significant upheaval over the past few months, particularly with the Microsoft-Motorola RAND-setting ruling and the ITC’s exclusion order in Samsung-Apple (and the USTR’s subsequent veto).  Today there will be a complimentary webinar in conjunction with the American Intellectual Property Law Association’s (AIPLA) Standards & Open…