InterDigital SEP valid and infringed by Lenovo: English High Court

InterDigital has won the first round of a telecommunications standard-essential patent (SEP) dispute with Lenovo, after the English High Court ruled today, July 29, that InterDigital’s patent was valid and infringed.

The dispute concerns Lenovo’s use of long term evolution (LTE) technology in its devices. InterDigital has accused Lenovo of infringing the patent and refusing to take a royalty.

Lenovo, meanwhile, rejected the allegations of infringement, while also arguing the patent was invalid. The Chinese electronics manufacturer is also arguing that InterDigital hasn’t presented a licence offer on fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms.

The court today ruled on the issues of infringement and patent validity, with FRAND and technical issues set to be adjudicated at later trials.

In its judgment, the court found InterDigital’s patent to be valid and infringed. Judge Richard Hacon was unconvinced that the invention disclosed was obvious in light of prior art cited by Lenovo.

The court also rejected Lenovo’s additional objections to the validity of the patent on the grounds of lack of inventive step and insufficiency.

Notably, the court also found the InterDigital patent to be essential to the LTE standard. “Lenovo uses LTE and therefore infringes the patent,” Judge Hacon wrote.

“This decision serves as further proof of the strength of InterDigital’s R&D in key technologies and of our patent portfolio overall,” said Richard Gulino, chief legal officer at  InterDigital.

“While we remain committed to licensing our patents through amicable negotiation and believe that is always more beneficial to both parties, we will not hesitate to use litigation in response to hold-out behaviour in order to obtain a fair return on our significant R&D investments,” Gulino added.

The FRAND trial is scheduled for January 2022, InterDigital said in its statement.

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