Additional take on Ericy and IDCC’s court responses
An important point in Ericy’s official response was that their standard-compliant products were not “unique”. I believe that we can infer from this representation that products made to a defined standard are much more similar than different. IDCC’s response indicated that Nokia had licensed for standards, and not individual patents or individual patent claims per se.
Therefore Nokia had licensed IDCC’s entire patent portfolio to manufacture wireless products for a given standard, and not piecemeal licensing by individual patents. IDCC states that they have over 100 TDMA/GSM patents that Nokia licensed. Thus the validity or what the court thought about a couple of individual IDCC patents should not be an issue at all.
What is important is that Ericy still licensed with IDCC to make products for the TDMA/GSM standards, the same as Nokia. In addition, Ericy’s and Sony/Ericy’s licenses included a definite royalty rate for those standards, which by contract automatically determines and triggers Nokia’s royalty rate for those same standards. IDCC also stated that the named manufacturers, who could automatically determine and trigger Nokia’s royalty, also legally include their “successors, assignees, and asset purchasers”. Therefore, I don’t understand Nokia’s earlier implication that Sony/Ericy is not the same contractual and legal entity as Ericy. The Sony/Ericy joint venture is Ericy’s legal successor for its wireless handset business.
An issue that was not directly addressed by IDCC’s response involved Nokia’s hinted allegation of improper insider selling. Either IDCC thought that this allegation was not even worthy of commenting upon, or they didn’t want to directly comment on this issue in a public document. IDCC did say that they had no foreknowledge of Nokia’s official decision to arbitrate until July 18; long after the insider selling had occurred. I suppose some questions remain as to what all the IDCC insiders knew and when re the royalty dispute and the likelihood of arbitration. Was what they knew properly being disclosed to the public prior to all the insider selling that was occurring?
I personally can’t believe that a company composed of many lawyers would allow illegal insider selling to occur. However, I do think that it was unwise and not in the best judgment for many insiders to sell before the Nokia/Samsung royalty issue was finalized or arbitrated. Sometimes just the appearance of possible impropriety can cast a long shadow of doubt and can cause problems. I wonder if Nokia will try to leverage this insider selling issue in some shape, form, or fashion to gain possible concessions from IDCC.
I don’t think Nokia has any other valid angle to pursue against IDCC and the multi-millions they owe. The license contract itself seems to be rather clear-cut and legally binding upon Nokia. I can’t see Nokia making much headway through the court, as their stalling arguments for accessing the sealed court documents appear very weak.
About the only thing left for Nokia to use against IDCC is the issue of improper insider selling IMO. Nokia is well aware of exactly what IDCC insiders knew and when. Nokia has already shown that they are capable of using anything and everything to try and get their way. Things could possibly boil down to the insiders making certain concessions to protect their own butts, or to fight for what is best for the outside shareholders. And people have always wondered why I always got so upset about all of the ongoing discretionary insider selling at IDCC, and even tried to forewarn them about possible problems that could arise from this discretionary selling.
AI
