Samsung wants Ericsson SEP restraining order dissolved
Samsung has told a Texas federal judge that he must respect a Chinese court’s order in a global licensing dispute with Ericsson on royalties for 4G and 5G patents.
The South Korean company has also received the backing of an ex-Federal Circuit chief justice, who said Chinese courts would handle the dispute fairly.
Ericsson is currently suing Samsung for infringing standard-essential patents (SEPs) covering the telecommunications technology in Texas.
But Samsung has also filed a complaint against the Swedish patent owner in Wuhan, China. Samsung wants the Wuhan court to set a global royalty rate for the Ericsson patents on fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms.
On Christmas Day, the Wuhan Intermediate People’s Court granted Samsung an anti-suit injunction (ASI), which prevents Ericsson from pursuing an injunction on 4G and 5G SEPs in any other jurisdiction.
But on December 30, Judge Rodney Gilstrap of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas granted Ericsson a temporary restraining order (TRO) preventing Samsung from pursuing enforcement of the Wuhan court’s order.
Ericsson requested the TRO, arguing that Wuhan was not the appropriate venue to decide the dispute.
“Given the divergence in judicial philosophy between China and the US, equitable considerations favour ensuring that this country has a fair opportunity to adjudicate the dispute between Ericsson and Samsung, particularly where both companies have significantly stronger ties to the US than to China,” the Ericsson application said.
The dispute sets up a hearing in the Texas litigation on whether Ericsson is entitled to a preliminary injunction, scheduled for Thursday, January 7.
A Samsung brief filed on January 1 urges the court to reject Ericsson’s request for an injunction, dissolve the TRO and respect the Wuhan court’s original order. Samsung says Wuhan would be an appropriate venue as China is the manufacturing centre for the devices involved in the licensing dispute.
“As the order itself explains, it is consistent with Ericsson’s FRAND commitments and with the commonsense need to prevent collateral piecemeal litigation in courts around the world while the parties’ entire dispute is pending in a forum with competent jurisdiction,” Samsung argued.
The South Korean conglomerate has also attracted the support of Randall Rader, former chief justice of the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
In a declaration filed in support of Samsung’s motion, Rader said he was “most confident that the China Court at issue will apply the laws and rules appropriately and treat an international company like Ericsson quite fairly in a litigation against another international company like Samsung”.
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