take questions from the public, and the topic of patents came up. He answered a question about non-practicing entities and startups, and acknowledged that the America Invents Act “only went about halfway” to full patent reform. (via Patent Progress)
It’s no surprise that most of the attention being paid to standard-essential patent issues is focused on the companies involved in the “smartphone wars” — Motorola, Microsoft, Apple. Samsung, etc. But while these consumer product companies are of course affected by issues involving standard-essential patents, so too are their component suppliers. A lawsuit filed this past fall in the Southern District of New York by Lotes Co. against Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. and Foxconn over SEP issues relating to the Universal Serial Bus (USB) 3.0 standard is a great example of this. Here, we attempt to provide a brief overview of the issues in the Lotes-Hon Hai case.
Continue Reading Catching up on…Lotes v. Foxconn RAND/antitrust dispute over USB 3.0 standard-essential patents
We’ve previously covered the bilateral standard-essential patent battle brewing between Ericsson and Samsung in the U.S. International Trade Commission (as well as the Eastern District of Texas). The ITC has instituted two investigations surrounding the parties’ claims: Inv. No. 337-TA-862 (based on Ericsson’s complaint) and Inv. No. 337-TA-866 (based on Samsung’s complaint). Yesterday, Samsung filed the public version of its Response to the Complaint and Notice of Investigation (essentially, an answer to Ericsson’s complaint) in the -862 investigation. Below is an overview of this filing, in which (surprise!) F/RAND-related issues and defenses have a starring role.
Continue Reading Samsung responds to Ericsson’s ITC complaint, accuses Ericsson of violating F/RAND obligations (337-TA-862)
On Friday, February 8, noted and sometimes infamous patent aggregator Intellectual Ventures filed three large patent infringement complaints in the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas. In the complaints, Intellectual Ventures accuses several providers of Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) services of infringing 19 patents that, according to IV, “cover fundamental and important aspects of DSL technology and services.” The DSL providers targeted by IV in these suits include AT&T, SBC, CenturyLink, Embarq, Qwest, Savvis, Windsteam, and PAETEC.
Continue Reading Intellectual Ventures targets DSL providers in massive new patent infringement complaints
It’s no secret that government agencies in the United States and abroad are paying more attention to standard-essential patent issues. More evidence of this trend came this past Friday, when Deputy Assistant Attorney General Renata B. Hesse of the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice delivered a speech at the Global Competition Review Antitrust Law Leaders Forum in Miami. Hesse’s speech makes it clear that FRAND licensing issues are a high priority for the DOJ’s antitrust division, and that the agency remains open to exploring new ways of enforcing FRAND commitments — potentially including pursuing standard-essential patent holders for violations of Section 2 of the Sherman Act (anticompetitive monopolies or attempts to monopolize).
Continue Reading Antitrust Deputy Assistant AG’s speech may foreshadow increased DOJ enforcement activities relating to standard-essential patents
Yesterday Apple filed its opposition to Motorola’s motion to dismiss or transfer for lack of jurisdiction in Federal Circuit appeal No. 2013-1150. This is Apple’s appeal of Judge Crabb’s dismissal of the Apple-Motorola FRAND/antitrust action (W.D. Wis. No. 3:10-cv-00178)). Apple contends that the Federal Circuit has jurisdiction over Apple’s appeal of the dismissal of its declaratory judgment claims because (1) the hypothetical Motorola complaint at which Apple’s declaratory judgment claim was directed would be for patent infringement, and (2) the district’s court’s decision to dismiss the patent-specific DJ claims without prejudice does not deprive the Federal Circuit of jurisdiction. As we anticipated in our post on Motorola’s motion to dismiss/transfer, some of Apple’s arguments in its opposition raise some interesting questions about whether jurisdiction over this appeal will be consistent with past and potential future appeals of orders in the Microsoft-Motorola RAND case.
Continue Reading Apple: Federal Circuit has exclusive jurisdiction over Apple-Motorola FRAND/antitrust appeal
In an order issued yesterday by the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington (that just hit the docket this afternoon), Judge James L. Robart granted Microsoft’s long-pending motion for partial summary judgment and invalidated thirteen claims of three patents Motorola alleged as essential to the AVC/H.264 video coding standard. Although this ruling stems from the infringement portion of the case, and the major issues between the parties involve the RAND breach of contract claims brought by Microsoft over Motorola’s entire 802.11 and H.264-essential patent portfolios, it’s possible that Judge Robart’s ruling could have some future effect on these RAND claims as well.
Continue Reading Microsoft-Motorola (W.D. Wash.) update: Court invalidates several claims of Motorola H.264-essential patents
Two new SEP-related patent infringement complaints were filed this week in the Central District of California by AIM IP, a non-practicing entity based in Mission Viejo, CA. These complaints accuse Aastra USA, Inc. and AudioCodes, Inc. each of infringing claims of U.S. Patent No. 5,920,853, titled “Signal Compression Using Index Mapping Technique for the Sharing of Quantization Tables.” AIM IP accuses various Aastra and AudioCodes Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) devices of infringing the patent based on the devices’ compliance with and use of the ITU G.729 audio compression standard.
[UPDATE] After this was originally posted, we discovered several additional new suits filed by AIM IP over the ‘853 patent. These were filed against ClearOne, Digium, Media5, Obihai, and Patton Electronics, and are linked to below. [/UPDATE]Continue Reading Non-practicing entity AIM IP files new infringement suits over VoIP standard-essential patent
We’ve previously discussed the wide-ranging assertion activities of Innovatio IP Ventures LLC, a non-practicing entity that has targeted thousands of companies across the country over patents related to the IEEE 802.11 wireless networking (Wi-Fi) standard. And due to an amended complaint filed in October 2012 by Motorola Solutions, Cisco, and Netgear in the Northern District of Illinois, Innovatio has been facing a litany of charges relating to this licensing and litigation campaign. These charges include breach of contractual RAND obligations, state law unfair competition, civil conspiracy, and even violation of the federal civil RICO statute. In November, Innovatio moved to dismiss these claims. This week, Chief Judge James F. Holderman granted much of Innovatio’s motion, dismissing all of the claims except for the RAND-based breach of contract and promissory estoppel claims. This ruling is indicative of the substantial hurdles that potential licensees of standard-essential patents face in attempting to show when patent holders’ assertion of rights and licensing demands may cross legal boundaries — and it may also further muddy the already murky waters surrounding the scope of RAND obligations.
Continue Reading Innovatio Update: Wi-Fi manufacturers’ RICO, unfair competition claims targeting Innovatio rejected, but RAND issues remain
Motorola and Apple are currently facing off over patent-related issues in several ongoing judicial proceedings, including multiple appeals before the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. One of these Federal Circuit appeals was brought by Apple over Judge Crabb’s dismissal of Apple’s claims that Motorola violated the antitrust laws and breached its contracts with SSOs in conducting its SEP-related licensing and enforcement activities. But on January 25, Motorola filed a motion with the Federal Circuit to dismiss Apple’s appeal (or transfer it to the Seventh Circuit), asserting that the Federal Circuit lacks jurisdiction to hear the case. While at first blush this seems like just a mundane dispute over civil procedure issues, a decision on this motion may have significant consequences for future FRAND-related proceedings.Continue Reading Motorola disputes Federal Circuit’s jurisdiction over Apple’s FRAND-related appeal, argues for dismissal or transfer