In the course of working on my own project on the topic of wrongful patent assertion, I only recently came across this newly-published book by Dr. Minyu Zheng, titled Legal Responses to Unjustified Threats of Patent Infringement:  Intellectual Property Approach or Unfair Competition Approach? (Elgar Intellectual Property and Global Development series, 2024).  Here is the book description: In this incisive book, Minyu Zheng examines the various legal responses to unjustified threats of patent infringement. Employing a comparative, jurisdiction-based analysis, Zheng investigates whethe ..read more

I’ve had some time now to review Friday’s decision by the UPC’s Mannheim Local Division in Panasonic v. OPPO—the UPC’s very first FRAND decision—and some of the initial commentary discussing it, on ip fray (here and here), JUVE Patent and by Peter Picht on linkedin.  As these commentators note, the decision is significant for, among other reasons, the following: (1) it confirms, as most observers pretty much expected, that the UPC has jurisdiction over FRAND counterclaims (paras. 237-41); (2) it intimates, as some previous German case law and commentary had done, that the past damages owe ..read more

The decision in Panasonic v. OPPO, Case No. 210/2023 came down today.  I have not yet read it, but there is a short summary on JUVE Patent, and my coauthor Peter Picht has a very helpful summary of the main points on his LinkedIn page.  I probably will have something to say about it next week.  According to these sources, the court finds OPPO to be an unwilling licensee and enters an injunction, even though the case has effectively (though apparently, not yet formally) settled.  Update:  My post yesterday erroneously stated that the court was the UPC Munich Local Divis ..read more

Last Thursday I moderated a webinar titled "German FRAND Cases:  the EC's Amicus Brief and Other Developments."  The panelists included Peter Picht and Erik Habich, who along with me edited the recently-published volume "FRAND:  German Case Law and Other Developments (Edward Elgar 2024) (see previous discussion on this blog here and here); Munich Regional Court Judge Hubertus Schacht and Lord Justice Richard Arnold of the Court of Appeal for England and Wales, both of whom contributed essays to the volume; and Professor Jorge Contreras.  Discussion ranged from the use of am ..read more

I have a new essay up on ssrn, titled Apple v. Motorola: Admissibility of expert testimony on royalties; injunctive relief, in Leading FRAND Cases (Jorge L. Contreras ed., Edward Elgar Press, forthcoming).  Here is a link, and here is the abstract: In Apple v. Motorola, 757 F.3d 1286 (Fed. Cir. 2014), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit for the first time addressed the propriety of injunctive relief for the infringement of FRAND-committed SEPs.  The court also addressed issues concerning the admissibility of expert testimony on FRAND royalties and reasonable royalties ..read more

Last week I gave two presentations in Asia.  On Monday, I presented The Law and Economics of Wrongful Patent Assertion at IEEM (Instituto de Estudos Europeus de Macau)’s 20th Intellectual Property Seminar, “Proportionality in Intellectual Property Law,” in Macau, S.A.R.  The presentation summarized some of my current book project, Wrongful Patent Assertion:  A Comparative Law and Economics Analysis, and I understand that a short paper based on my presentation will be published in a forthcoming edited volume of papers presented at the conference.  Then on Wednesday, I presen ..read more

Webinar announcement is below.  As we will be discussing, there have now been two decisions within the past week and a half discussing the EC Amicus Brief—one last week by the Munich Regional Court, and one the week before by the Munich Higher Regional Court—so this webinar could hardly be more timely!  Also on the agenda:  the use of amicus briefs outside the E.U., and last month's ruling by the EWCA on Panasonic v. Xiaomi.     ..read more

I am on my way to Asia for a couple of conferences, so I will be brief.  First, as noted in the post below, I had the incorrect European/U.K. time listed for our forthcoming webinar on German FRAND cases.  It will be 16:00 CET, 15:00 UK time, and 9:00 am U.S. Central Time.  And it now looks like we will have a lot to talk about, since according to ip fray there was a major preliminary decision yesterday from the Munich Higher Regional Court in HMD Global Oy v. VoiceAge EVS GmbH & Co. KG, that appears to agree in large part with European Commission's position as stated in its ..read more

I will be moderating the event described in this announcement: Join us for "German FRAND Cases: The EC’s Amicus Brief and Other Developments" on Thursday, November 14, 2024, | 16:00 (Central European Time) | 15:00 (Greenwich Time) | 9:00 a.m. (U.S. Central Time) This one-hour webinar will focus on the developing German case law concerning FRAND-committed standard-essential patents (SEPs); the possible impact of the European Commission’s amicus brief in the pending HMD Global Oy v. VoiceAge EVS GmbH & Co. KG case; and a comparative look at both SEP li ..read more

Christian Donle has published a short piece titled Amicus Curiae-Eingabe der Kommission zu standardessenziellen Patenten (“Amicus Curiae Brief of the Commission on Standard-Essential Patents”), 19/2024 GRUR 1404-05.  Here is the abstract (my translation): The Commission has submitted an amicus curiae brief in two parallel SEP infringement proceedings with the Munich Higher Regional Court, and explained its understanding of the CJEU’s decision in Huawei v. ZTE.  This appears to be only the second amicus curiae brief of the Commission in a German judicial proceeding at all, and the pot ..read more