On May 5, 2020, Germany’s highest court, the Federal Court of Justice (GFCJ), made a provisional (tentative) ruling at the hearing in Sisvel’s SEP case against Haier, determining that Sisvel had not abused a dominant market position and Haier – as the implementer – had failed to comply with its FRAND obligations in the way that it handled licensing negotiations with SEP-owner Sisvel.
The GFCJ not not yet issued its final written decision, so we’ve done our best to summarize key points from various accounts of the May 5 hearing. So consider this post more as issue spotting with proper skepticism and understanding that the final decision may be different from what was said at the hearing. We encourage readers to keep an eye out for the Court’s final ruling, and we will provide an update once we receive an English version of the final decision (we will give a shout-out to the first person to send us an English version of the final decision).
Following the May 5 ruling, Sisvel on May 15 filed patent infringement suits against Tesla, Dell, Honeywell, HMD Global, TCL, BLU Products, CradlePoint, OnePlus, Tinno Mobile, Sun Cupid Technology, Verifone, and Xirgo in the District of Delaware, asserting patents previously assigned to Nokia, BlackBerry, LG, and Thomson Licensing and declared essential to 3G and 4G/LTE wireless standards. Sisvel had filed cases against BLU, Dell, Honeywell, Tesla and Xirgo last June.
Continue Reading Germany’s highest court tentatively rules that infringer hold-out violated its obligations to negotiate a FRAND license (Sisvel v. Haier)