Yesterday, InterDigital announced that it signed “a multi-year, worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty bearing patent license agreement” with Huawei, bringing an end to the companies’ SEP litigation in China and the U.K. over FRAND terms for InterDigital patents essential to 3G, 4G, and 5G wireless telecommunication standards. InterDigital’s press release states the new agreement “covers certain of Huawei’s products and certain of InterDigital’s essential patents” and that the companies have agreed to dismiss all pending litigation between them.  

In addition to resolving a significant overhang that the dispute posed to InterDigital’s licensing business, we anticipate the Huawei agreement could feature prominently in InterDigital’s defense against Lenovo’s newly filed antitrust claims, particularly those predicated on an alleged failure to license its patents on FRAND terms (see our April 28, 2020 post). Quoting InterDigital President and CEO William Merritt, the press release may preview the tone of InterDigital’s response in the Lenovo case by noting that the Huawei agreement “underscores the fairness and flexibility of our licensing approach, including our rate and portfolio transparency, which set an industry standard.”  
Continue Reading InterDigital pens SEP license agreement with Huawei as Lenovo Dispute escalates

Following settlement, the ITC rescinded the limited exclusion order against Carsem per the parties’ request. Recall from our May 1, 2014 post that the ITC determined that respondent Carsem infringed AMkor’s patent, found that Amkor’s patent was not essential to JEDEC standard, and issued a limited exclusion order barring the unlicensed entry of infringing articles

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its opinion in Medtronic, Inv. v. Mirowski Family Ventures, LLC, unanimously reversing the Federal Circuit’s decision below and resolving two issues that are commonly disputed in the lower courts.  First, the Court held that the Federal Circuit had subject-matter jurisdiction over an appeal of an action for a

A couple of weeks ago, we noted a peculiar minute order emanating from Judge James L. Robart’s courtroom in the Microsoft-Motorola RAND case.  Based on his review of Google’s AVC/H.264 standard-essential patent pool license agreement with MPEG LA, Judge Robart asked the parties to submit short letter briefs addressing two questions regarding the relevance of the Enterprise License provision (Section 3.1.7) to any grantback license that Motorola (as a subsidiary of Google) might owe to Microsoft.

Late Friday, the parties submitted their respective answers to the court’s questions (Microsoft’s / Motorola’s).  The parties’ answers and arguments show just how millions of dollars in royalties could turn on the interpretation of just a couple of short phrases in the MPEG LA agreement.  After the jump, we’ll provide a short summary of both Microsoft’s and Motorola’s positions.  Essentially, though, the parties’ arguments boil down to this — Was the MPEG LA agreement’s grantback provision designed to extend to all affiliates of a given licensee, whether those affiliates receive any benefits under the agreement or not?Continue Reading Microsoft, Motorola submit final arguments to Washington court on the relevance and effects of Google-MPEG LA AVC/H.264 agreement to a Microsoft-Motorola RAND license

Last week, Judge James L. Robart briefly reopened the trial record in the Microsoft-Motorola RAND breach of contract case, in order to allow the parties to submit additional evidence regarding the RAND rate for Motorola’s patents.  Yesterday, Judge Robart issued another short minute order, this time allowing additional briefing on a different issue.  Yesterday’s order concerns the terms of Google’s license with the MPEG LA AVC/H.264 patent pool, which Microsoft claims are dispositive of the appropriate RAND rate for Motorola’s H.264 patents.  (For more background on this particular issue, see our earlier post on the parties’  briefing leading up to oral arguments.).  Judge Robart has now allowed the parties to submit letter briefs of up to six pages by March 1 in light of certain “novel arguments” regarding the MPEG LA agreement that were apparently raised by the parties at the January 28 oral argument.
Continue Reading Microsoft-Motorola judge orders additional briefing on how Google-MPEG LA license agreement may affect RAND terms for Motorola’s H.264 patents