Yesterday, the UK’s High Court of Justice of England and Wales (EWHC) issued an approved judgment in Motorola Mobility, LLC v. Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson ruling on the scope of a 2011 wireless device licensing agreement between Motorola (a Lenovo company) and Ericsson. According to a Lenovo press release following the decision, this ruling defines the scope of that agreement such that most Motorola devices are covered. This would represent the second legal victory in the UK in recent weeks for Lenovo, Motorola’s owner, following the UK Court of Appeal’s ruling that Ericsson breached fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) obligations related to 4G and 5G standard-essential patents (SEPs) asserted in separate litigation.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) in a precedential decision today vacated a district court’s denial of Lenovo’s request for the court to issue an “antisuit injunction” against Ericsson prohibiting it from enforcing injunctions granted by Brazilian and Colombian courts relating to Ericsson’s 5G standard essential patents (SEPs). The CAFC ruled that the district court erred in determining whether the U.S. lawsuit was dispositive of the South American actions when it concluded that the U.S. action must result in a license between the parties to the standard essential patents (SEPs) at issue.
The UK High Court today issued an Approved Judgment in Interdigital Technology Corporation & Ors v Lenovo Group Ltd [2023] EWHC 1578 (Pat). While Lenovo was declared the “overall winner,” InterDigital was awarded interest, increasing their previous award by $46.2 million. In March, the Hon. Mr Justice Mellor issued a judgment ordering Lenovo to pay InterDigital a lump sum of $138.7 million for a global FRAND (fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory) license covering sales of cellular devices from 2007 to December 31, 2023. It was the second full FRAND trial to be decided by the UK courts, following the landmark Unwired Planet case.
Lenovo has been ordered to pay InterDigital a lump sum of $138.7 million for a global FRAND (fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory) license covering sales of cellular devices from 2007 to December 31, 2023, in the second full FRAND trial to be decided by the UK courts, following the landmark Unwired Planet case. (Interdigital Technology Corporation & Ors v Lenovo Group Ltd (FRAND Judgment – Public Version) [2023] EWHC 539 (Pat).) In his redacted judgment published on March 15, Mr. Justice Mellor found that neither InterDigital’s August 2021 license offer (which amounted to $337 million) nor Lenovo’s counter offer (which comprised a lump sum of $80 million +/-15% for all sales in the six-year term to the end of 2023 with a full release for all past sales for no additional consideration) were FRAND or within the FRAND range.
On Wednesday, January 18th, the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) began a probe into a Section 337 patent infringement complaint involving graphics processors and memory controllers against a collection of 17 firms, according to Reuters. These firms include some tech giants in the world of semiconductors and electronics, including Qualcomm, Inc. (NASDAQ:QCOM), Sony Corp. (NYSE:SNE), LG Electronics (KRX:066570), Lenovo Group (HKG:0992), Motorola Mobility LLC and Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMD) The Section 337 complaint was filed on December 16th by ZiiLabs Ltd., a Bermuda subsidiary of Hong Kong’s Creative Technology Asia Limited.
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.