Today, a European Union high court issued a ruling that provides guidance on what steps the owner of a FRAND-encumbered patent that may be essential to a standard should take before seeking injunctive relief. The court also ruled that a willing licensee should act without delay, provide a counter-offer, and actively pay royalties (in trust
Hold-Up
ITC grants partial review of ALJ Essex’s decision concerning FRAND issues (337-TA-613)
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 …
Judge Essex holds that Nokia’s handsets infringe two of InterDigital’s patents
Yesterday, Administrative Law Judge Essex issued a one-page notice of initial determination holding that Nokia’s 3G mobile handsets infringe the asserted claims of InterDigital’s U.S. Patent Nos. 7,190,966 and 7,286,847 (“the ‘847 Patent”) in the International Trade Commission’s investigation styled In the Matter of Certain 3G Mobile Handsets and Components Thereof (ITC Inv. No. 337-TA-613). …
N.D. Cal. excludes expert damages testimony that based royalty rate on patents’ hold-up value
With standard-essential-patent (SEP) damages discussions frequently focused on how to calculate a RAND rate, one can sometimes forget that not all SEPs are subject to [F]RAND obligations, which raises the issue whether and to what extent a reasonable royalty rate would be different between RAND and non-RAND encumbered patents. Last week, N.D. Cal. Judge Lucy…
Fourth Circuit preserves existing U.S. patent licensing rights in bankruptcy
Yesterday the Fourth Circuit issued a decision in Jaffe v. Samsung, et al. regarding the preservation of existing U.S. patent licensing rights that various semiconductor companies had through cross-licensing with Qimonda AG, a German semiconductor manufacturer going through bankruptcy proceedings in Germany. The decision does not state whether any standard essential patents (SEPs) were…
PUBLIC version of Judge Holderman’s RAND determination in Innovatio WiFi SEP litigation
Today the court posted the public version of Judge Holderman’s 89-page ruling on what constitutes RAND for Innovatio’s WiFi patents — posted much sooner than anticipated in our earlier post. The court applied a modified version of Judge Robart’s methodology to determine the RAND rate to be paid by manufacturers of WiFi equipment for…