ZTE hits out at InterDigital patent ruling
Chinese phone maker ZTE has accused a US court of contradicting a previous decision after it was found guilty of infringing three patents belonging to wireless company InterDigital.
ZTE, which has revealed it will appeal against the ruling, told WIPR it was “disappointed” by the decision because it went against a ruling from the US International Trade Commission ( ITC) on the same issue.
Last week, WIPR reported that InterDigital had defeated ZTE following a battle at the US District Court for the District of Delaware.
In the decision, on Wednesday (October 29), a jury found that two InterDigital patents, known as the ‘power ramp-up patents’, which ZTE had tried to invalidate, were both valid and infringed.
The patents, US numbers 7,190,966 and 7,286,847, were asserted by InterDigital in January last year following a failure to agree a licensing deal with ZTE.
Another patent surrounding wireless technology, US number 8,380,244, was also deemed to be infringed.
But the decision went against an ITC ruling in a dispute over the same patents, where InterDigital was denied a request for a banning order that would have blocked imports of ZTE phones.
“The jury verdict contradicted the final decision of the International Trade Commission, which determined in August 2014 that ZTE did not infringe two of the three patents considered by the jury,” ZTE said.
ZTE added that the US Patent and Trademark Office's Patent Trial and Appeal Board is currently reviewing the validity of the third patent that it was found to have infringed.
The company said: “As one of the world’s leading technology innovators, ZTE respects the IP of other companies. ZTE is committed to reaching licensing agreements with holders of standard essential patents on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory principles.”
In a statement after the ruling, William Merritt, president of InterDigital, said the jury's verdict validated InterDigital's “significant contributions” to the advancement of the cellular wireless industry and supported its longstanding licensing programme.
