New BGH ruling to harmonize FRAND case-law post Huawei?


About to enter a new FRAND-era? Time will tel!
A six- year long legal dispute between Sisvel and Haier, concerning the question of injunctive relief for infringement of cellular Standard Essential Patents (SEPs) EP 0 852 885 (“885”), owned by Sisvel, has been brought to an end by the German Federal Supreme Court (BGH), in a decision, rendered on May 5, 2020.

The BGH ruled that Haier had acted as an unwilling licensee in FRAND negotiations, thus not fulfilling the requirements for a compulsory license.

Previously, on March 10, 2020, the BGH had confirmed that patent EP 885 was valid. On April 28, 2020, the same court confirmed the validity of yet another Sisvel patent, namely EP 1 264 504.

The BGH announced that in the infringement proceedings of EP 885, the decision of the Appeal Court in Düsseldorf from March 2017, is reversed in relation to the finding on costs and insofar as the decision was to the detriment of the plaintiff (Sisvel). The Appeal Court had reached the conclusion that infringement had taken place but, at the same time, accepted Haier’s claim, namely the antitrust objection to a justified compulsory license (see here the IPKat post on the Appeal Court ruling) 
This is the first FRAND decision to reach the BGH since the CJEU decision Huawei ./. ZTE of 16 July 2015 (C-170/13) and thus there are high expectations that this ruling will harmonize FRAND case-law in Germany. IPKat looks forward to receiving the full decision within the next three to six weeks in order to better assess its impact.

New BGH ruling to harmonize FRAND case-law post Huawei? New BGH ruling to harmonize FRAND case-law post Huawei? Reviewed by Frantzeska Papadopoulou on Tuesday, May 12, 2020 Rating: 5

No comments:

All comments must be moderated by a member of the IPKat team before they appear on the blog. Comments will not be allowed if the contravene the IPKat policy that readers' comments should not be obscene or defamatory; they should not consist of ad hominem attacks on members of the blog team or other comment-posters and they should make a constructive contribution to the discussion of the post on which they purport to comment.

It is also the IPKat policy that comments should not be made completely anonymously, and users should use a consistent name or pseudonym (which should not itself be defamatory or obscene, or that of another real person), either in the "identity" field, or at the beginning of the comment. Current practice is to, however, allow a limited number of comments that contravene this policy, provided that the comment has a high degree of relevance and the comment chain does not become too difficult to follow.

Learn more here: http://ipkitten.blogspot.com/p/want-to-complain.html

Powered by Blogger.