Posts Tagged: "LTE"

On August 4, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) affirmed a decision of the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware in Godo Kaisha IP Bridge 1 v. TCL Commc’n Tech, wherein the district court held that TCL was liable for infringement by way of its sale of LTE standard-compliant devices…. The CAFC initially said that it agreed with the district court’s ruling and reasoning, but wrote to address a question not before addressed by the CAFC case law: “who determines the standard-essentiality of the patent claims at issue—the court, as part of claim construction, or the jury, as part of its infringement analysis?”

This week in Other Barks and Bites: the Senate Judiciary Committee plans to go after drug patents to promote access to generic medications; Apple faces another patent suit in the Eastern District of Texas in the midst of attempts to remove its business presence from the district; China enacts a code of conduct for patent agents; Samsung and Huawei enter into an agreement to terminate their multi-year legal battle in the Android sector; the makers of Fortnite face yet another copyright suit over dance moves; Warner Bros. strikes down a Kickstarter campaign intending to distribute edited versions of The Departed; and a Delaware jury upholds cholesterol treatment patents owned by Amgen.

On February 13, global policymakers and technology company representatives gathered in Washington, D.C. at Google’s offices for the Women’s High-Tech Coalition (WHTC) Third Annual “Women of Wireless” dialogue. The speakers represented companies including Google, Verizon, and Qualcomm, as well as major industry organizations such as the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association (CTIA) and the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), and discussed the various infrastructure, policy, and privacy challenges facing the industry in the race to 5G-implementation. With a record number of women elected to the 116th Session of the U.S. Congress and recent White House Executive Orders on technology issues— including this month’s “Maintaining American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence (AI),” an expected executive order on 5G technology, and likely Congressional briefings and hearings focused on wireless innovation—the WHTC is an integral network of stakeholders to discuss these issues and to develop opportunities for strategic partnerships and shared initiatives.

The Qualcomm decision is unique in that it appears to be the first decision to require a SEP holder to license its patented technology to its competitors, and not just its downstream customers, on FRAND terms.  This decision casts doubt on the longstanding practice, common in industries such as the telecommunication and automotive industries, in which SEP holders seek to secure “FRAND” licenses with downstream companies that make finished products, while refusing to license (or licensing on non-FRAND terms) those same SEPs to their competitors or other companies further up the supply chain (such as component suppliers).  The decision also emphasizes U.S. courts’ focus on the express language of SSOs’ IPR policies and the willingness to review the SSO guidelines in interpreting the agreements SEP holders enter into with SSOs.  In this regard, the decision may bode well for SEP implementers, given the court’s broad understanding of what it means to “practice” a relevant standard and its view that SEP holders’ FRAND obligations extend to all potential licensees, irrespective of their position in the supply chain.

On Tuesday, September 4th, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a precedential decision in Intellectual Ventures I LLC v. T-Mobile USA, Inc., et. al., vacating and remanding a grant of summary judgment entered by the district court finding the defendants in the case didn’t infringe a patent asserted by Intellectual Ventures. The Federal Circuit panel of Chief Judge Sharon Prost and Circuit Judges Kimberly Moore and Jimmie Reyna found that the district court had erred in its claim construction leading up to the grant of summary judgment in the case.

On August 1st, a jury verdict entered in the Southern District of California awarded $145.1 million in reasonable royalty damages to Canadian IP licensing firm Wi-LAN in a patent infringement case against Cupertino, CA-based consumer device giant Apple Inc. The jury determined that Apple infringed upon claims of two patents owned by Wi-LAN.

The debate on royalty payments for standard essential patents has a surprisingly emotional, sometimes even hostile, undertone. Companies selling standards-based products have an obvious commercial interest in lower royalty rates, but for some participants in the debate the hostility goes deeper. Some people find the idea of having to pay royalties for the use of any standard objectionable and unreasonable.

Unlike other technologies (e.g. User interface) where the manufacturers have a choice to design around the technology of the patent, in case of SEPs, there is no possible way to avoid infringement and still comply with the standard. On the other hand, non-compliance with standard is a commercially non-viable option. This situation gives the SEPs holders a great leverage to assert their licensing terms. While there have been several cases and rulings in favor of SEP licensees that put some restrictions on the SEP holders regarding their FRAND licensing commitments as well as their abilities to exercise an injunction for infringement of SEPs, lack of clarity on FRAND terms still make the negotiations tough for a potential SEP licensee.

5G is expected to generate even higher revenues from applications and services due to explosion on mobile application and services because of broadband-like speed, which are crucial for some of the emerging technologies like IoT, Wearables and Virtual/Augmented Reality. Revenues for 5G services will exceed $65 billion by 2025, according to a forecast from Juniper Research… The number of patents and key underlying technologies for 5G mobile networks will evolve significantly within next 5 years. However, early analysis shows that Qualcomm will still be the IP leader but may be not as dominant as in 4G-LTE. The device makers like Apple, Samsung, and Lenovo are also working on 5G IP development in order to minimize IP licensing costs.

The nature of broadband has been changing in a way that Wheeler believes will spur even more robust data services in the near future. The FCC is taking a number of steps to try and promote competition among broadband service providers, one of the most highly anticipated of which is the incentive auction of broadcast television airwave spectrum which is currently scheduled for the first quarter of 2016. The auction is an attempt to purchase spectrum from TV broadcasters so that it can be resold in a later auction to wireless service providers.