WIPR survey: InterDigital ‘wrong’ over Nokia ITC claims
InterDigital was wrong to claim that a decision by the US International Trade Commission (ITC) to end an investigation into whether Nokia infringed its patents had a “limited effect”, readers have said.
Earlier this month, WIPR reported that the ITC had terminated an investigation into claims that Nokia had infringed two InterDigital patents.
After the decision was announced, on August 28, InterDigital said it expected the ruling to have a limited impact on its business given the “decline of the Nokia mobile device business under Microsoft’s control and its limited market position”.
Nokia sold its mobile phone division to Microsoft in 2014.
Responding to WIPR’s most recent survey, 71% of readers disagreed with InterDigital’s claims.
One respondent said that InterDigital has always “scared small players into signing licences and sued medium players to try to get them and larger firms to take a licence”.
“The fact that Nokia stuck it out all these years—and won—suggests there may be less to InterDigital’s IP than meets the eye.”
Another respondent who disagreed with InterDigital’s claims said: “If the case had really ceased to have any importance after Nokia sold its handset business, I’m sure InterDigital would have dropped the case, instead of spending many more millions of dollars on legal fees.”
The long-running dispute began in 2007 after InterDigital requested that the ITC halt the importation of Nokia phones that allegedly infringed its US patent numbers 7,190,966 and 7,286,847, which covered the use of 3G technology in mobile phones.
In its first ruling, handed down in 2009, the ITC said there was no infringement.
But in 2012, after InterDigital appealed against the ruling, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed that decision.
The reversal was ordered on the grounds that the ITC incorrectly construed the claims asserted in the patents.
Nokia’s appeal for an en banc re-hearing at the federal circuit was rejected in January 2013 and the case was remanded back to the ITC.
But in its August 28 decision the ITC again found that there was no infringement and ruled in favour of Nokia.
For this week’s survey we ask: “Earlier this month, the Court of Justice of the European Union said that Community trademark owners can successfully oppose trademark applications in member states where they do not sell their product if they can demonstrate that their mark has a reputation in a substantial part of the EU. Was this a fair decision?”
