Posts Tagged: "patent settlement"

On Wednesday, June 27th, a pair of orders of dismissal, one entered in the District of Delaware and the other entered in the Northern District of California, marked the official end of the patent war which played out between consumer tech giants Apple and Samsung for the better part of the past decade. This legal dispute, which was brought to courts in 10 different countries and even went to the U.S. Supreme Court, is notable because it undermines the argument that major patent infringement battles harm tech consumers through added costs and blocking innovation.

On Monday, February 5th, Finnish enterprise cybersecurity solutions firm SSH Communications Security announced that it had entered into a patent cross-license and settlement agreement with Japanese electronics conglomerate Sony Corporation (NYSE:SNE). The agreement reportedly resolves all patent disputes between the two companies after Sony successfully challenged the validity of two U.S. patents owned by SSH Communications at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB).

Overland Park, KS-based telecom firm Sprint Corporation (NYSE:S) and Atlanta, GA-based broadband provider Cox Communications announced a multi-year business agreement resulting from the settlement of a patent infringement case between the two companies. The settlement, which is “designed to strengthen each company,” provides a brief glimpse into how a patent squabble can be resolved for the betterment of all parties involved in the case.

On Friday, January 19th, a magistrate judge in the District of Delaware entered a memorandum opinion ordering Cornell University to enter into arbitration proceedings to resolve a dispute with licensee Life Technologies Corporation. The dispute arises out of a patent infringement case in which both parties are plaintiffs after Cornell felt that it was fraudulently induced into a settlement agreement with Life Technologies and Illumina, Inc., the defendant in the case.

On Thursday, September 28th, a judge in the District of Delaware entered an order stipulating dismissal in a patent infringement case brought by North Chicago-based pharmaceutical firm AbbVie (NYSE:ABBV) against Thousand Oaks, CA-based drugmaker Amgen (NASDAQ:AMGN). According to reports, the settlement follows an agreement between the two companies to delay a generic version of the anti-inflammatory drug Humira from the U.S. market until 2023… Of AbbVie’s total $6.94 billion in net revenues from U.S. and international sales during the quarter, Humira contributed $4.71 billion in revenues.

Howard further explained, however, that it is a mistake to think that characterizing IPR settlements as a “win” is the only way to look at it… In many of these settlements there will already be a finding by the PTAB that the claims are likely invalid, and even with a settlement that finding will linger long past the life of the proceeding. Furthermore, a patent remaining valid and therefore the case being won from the patent practitioner perspective is very different than how it would be perceived from the patent owner perspective. A patent owner who must give a no-cost license to infringers to keep a wounded patent which has been found to have claims that are likely infringed is not a win. Therefore, any objective thinking, sane, rational person should appreciate that IPR settlements are not a win from the patent owner perspective, which is exactly what we’ve said all along.

Unified Patents challenges patents by filing inter partes review proceedings. They tout on their website that they are “the only entity that challenges bad patents and never pays.” They also explain that they do settle post grant challenges provided the settlement will remain confidential and further provided the patent owner agrees to provide a no-cost license… How is a no-cost license given to an IPR petitioner anything other than complete and total capitulation? Complete and total capitulation in the real world is not a victory for the patent owner; it is an unequivocal loss.

Digital video recording (DVR) development company TiVo recently settled a patent infringement litigation, which it had filed last year against South Korean electronics giant Samsung. The settlement includes an intellectual property licensing agreement which will be in force for at least five years which will allow Samsung to continue providing DVR technologies in the U.S. market. TiVo first filed suit against Samsung last September in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas (E.D. Tex.). The patent infringement complaint alleged that set-top boxes produced and marketed by Samsung to television service providers offered DVR technology which infringed upon a series of four TiVo patents.

Why should the costs of the tortfeasing infringer be relevant in determining whether the extracted value from a settlement is fair? The fact that law firms charge a lot of money to defend patent infringement cases, and don’t particularly have any incentive to settle cases early, somehow translates into certain settlements being for nuisance value without any consideration of whether the settlement is a fair value for the rights trampled upon by the infringer? The FTC has quite a lot of explaining to do, because it seems they picked an arbitrary number that is a function of what attorneys ordinarily charge infringing defendants through discovery. I don’t see how that is a function of the value of the innovation, or how it says anything about the merits of the infringement case, the damages case, or the tactics of the patent owner. In fact, it seems as if the $300,000 figure is completely irrelevant.

The suit filed by MONKEYmedia identified Apple software products as allegedly infringing upon the patents-in-suit… Six years of litigation later and on September 6th, 2016, an order of dismissal was filed in W.D. Tex. indicating that both parties had settled their respective claims for relief filed in the case. A joint stipulation of dismissal filed on September 2nd stated that both parties had stipulated to the dismissal of all claims and counter-claims asserted against each other. This comes about a year after MONKEYmedia had settled similar patent infringement claims against Sony Corporation (NYSE:SNE), developer of the Blu-ray digital content standard which takes advantage of seamless expansion technologies covered by MONKEYmedia’s patents. “We’re pleased that the litigation has been resolved with each of Apple and Sony,” said Eric Gould Bear, co-founder of MONKEYmedia and a renowned designer of user interface and interaction technologies. “They each make great products, and I believe synergistic relationships are better business than sitting on opposite sides of the court.”

The number of these potentially anticompetitive deals has fallen significantly following the Supreme Court’s landmark antitrust decision in FTC v. Actavis in 2013. The total number of such deals filed with the FTC has dropped to 21 in FY 2014 from 29 in FY 2013, and 40 in FY 2012 prior to the Actavis ruling. The FTC staff report for FY 2014 represents the first annual snapshot of such deals following the Actavis decision.

The settlement comes after a nearly 10-year legal battle in which Pfizer and Nycomed (now part of Takeda) sought to enforce the patent for its blockbuster acid reflux medicine. Pfizer subsidiary Wyeth and Takeda will divide the proceeds of the settlement with Pfizer receiving $1.376 billion and Takeda receiving $774 million. Collectively, this $2.15 billion patent infringement settlement is the largest patent settlement in history, dwarfing the $1.7 settlement achieved by Johnson & Johnson in 2010 and the $1.35 billion settlement achieved by hall-of-fame inventor Dr. Gary Michelson against Medtronic in 2005.