David W. Long founded Essential Patent LLC ( ) to focus on patent law and related hi-tech intellectual property issues, including standard essential patents, licensing negotiations, mediation and other legal services. David has over twenty-five years of telecommunications experience, including over twenty years litigating complex patent cases in federal district and appellate courts. Read More
Since taking over as head of patents at Facebook in 2018, Jeremiah Chan has brought new energy to the role, spearheading a period of buying activity and honing a laser focus on the value that intellectual property brings to the social media colossus. His championing of the application of data analytics in patent prosecution and portfolio maintenance has made Chan a key voice in an increasingly important field.
Interdigital sues Motorola-owner Lenovo over 4G patents
Since Panasonic learned to love NPE deals under his predecessor, Yoshiaki Tokuda has continued many of these profitable relationships over the past two years. The Japanese company sent more than 4,000 patents to Dominion Harbor in the last year and Tokuda has managed to hook new customers including GoerTek, a notable Chinese Apple supplier.
Costs incurred internally in researching and developing a computer software product are charged to expense until technological feasibility has been established for the product. Once technological feasibility is established, all software costs are capitalized until the product is available for general release to customers. Judgment is required in determining when technological feasibility of a product is established. We have determined that technological feasibility for our software products is reached after all high-risk development issues have been resolved through coding and testing. Generally, this occurs shortly before the products are released to manufacturing. The amortization of these costs is included in cost of revenue over the estimated life of the products.
In June 2005, GO Computer Inc. and co-founder Jerry Kaplan filed a complaint in California state court asserting antitrust claims under the Cartwright Act related to the business of the former GO Corporation in the early 1990s and its successor in interest, Lucent Corporation in the early 2000s. All claims prior to June 2001 have been dismissed with prejudice as barred by the statute of limitations. After a mini-trial on standing issues, the case is now moving forward with discovery, and a trial is set for September 2015.
We are familiar with many ETSI, IEEE, ITU and other standards, and the patent litigators understand the particular issues arising in the litigation of standard essential patents, such as identification of working group proposals which may form part of the prior art. The competition team understands how FRAND licences are negotiated in practice, and common issues such as hold-up / hold out, royalty stacking and privateering, as well as advising on compliance with the Huawei v ZTE CJEU regime both before and during litigation. .
The Court admitted the statement notwithstanding its view that the content likely was not relevant to the issues at trial since it may have potential relevance should certain issues arise and, further, to not admit it would require amendment of one of the expert reports. The Court cautioned, however, that the position should be kept under review and noted there were severe questions over the weight that could be placed on the statement, not least because it would be challenging to cross-examine the witness given the absence of associated documentary material to scrutinise.
However, the court held that these developments did not alter the finding in Conversant that the English courts are the appropriate forum to hear a dispute concerning UK patents. Indeed, the court observed that these proceedings would have less in common with the Chinese proceedings than was the case in Conversant, since the latter would not involve any issues of patent essentiality, infringement or validity.
The Court considered various case management issues relating to trial management, as (i) the Defendants sought to have aspects of their defence concerning non-disclosure / estoppel determined at a separate trial rather than at the forthcoming technical trial(s), and (ii) the Claimants sought to have an earlier trial of one of the patents in suit (the other having already been listed early given the imminent expiry of the patent).
Conversant's sought licence agreements primarily relating to 3G and/or 4G patents as Huawei was relying on a third party licence granted by Nokia and it argued it needed the disclosure to establish if the licence was comparable. Conversant's application was refused as the Court felt such licences were no help in resolving the issues in Unwired Planet and there are significant costs involved in this sort of disclosure. Conversant could argue about the comparable nature of the licence relied on by Huawei at trial.
The Court decided that there was not a sufficiently strong case to justify varying or revoking the judge's order. A number of the issues raised were inherent in the order, rather than being due to any change in circumstances, there was little pleaded overlap between the two issues and the case would become unmanageable if the licence and FRAND issues were tried at the same time.
ZTE (implementer): litigation by Conversant in respect of four ETSI declared essential patents involving jurisdictional challenges (which the Supreme Court heard in October 2019) as well as standard SEP litigation and FRAND issues.
In fact, similar issues were raised on appeal as in first instance. The main difference is that Conversant no longer asserted three of the patents initially discussed and preferred to focus on the remaining two.
Questions over the correct forum, and the nature of a willing licensee, are not the only disputed issues in global FRAND litigation. Where to seek a license in the supply chain remains a contentious issue in Europe, and is unlikely to be clarified until the CJEU answers questions referred to it by the Regional Court of Düsseldorf. The Düsseldorf case concerns an ongoing SEP dispute between Nokia and Daimler, with the German court seeking clarification over which company in a supply chain a SEP holder must grant a licence to. Nokia initially appealed against the reference of questions to the CJEU but last month withdrew its appeal.
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There are also some other important issues in SEP disputes, such as whether Chinese courts have the authority to decide licensing conditions for SEPs outside China or globally. According to general principles of judicial sovereignty and international comity, Chinese courts only have jurisdiction on licensing conditions inside China. However, the guidelines regulate that if there are no oppositions from either party or the oppositions are found to be unreasonable by the court, then the court in China may decide a global licensing rate. 2ff7e9595c
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