InterDigital Fights To Revive 3G Patent On Appeal
By Alex Baldwin · Listen to article
Law360, London (September 22, 2022, 6:32 PM BST) -- InterDigital urged a London appeals court Thursday to overturn a ruling that invalidated one of its 3G patents, arguing that an older invention Lenovo cited did not predict its patent for transferring data by mobile phones.
InterDigital claims that a High Court judge was wrong to find that its patent — which is deemed essential to the 3G technology standard — did not cover a new invention, and convinced the Court of Appeal at a hearing on Thursday to review the decision.
Judge Colin Birss said there was a "reasonable prospect" that InterDigital's appeal could be successful.
InterDigital initially asked the High Court judge, James Mellor, for permission to appeal the decision to invalidate one of its patents — which covers ways data blocks are transmitted by mobile phones — but the judge refused in April.
InterDigital argued Thursday that Judge Mellor was wrong to conclude that both the "means" to apply its patented technology and the method were predicted by a prior publication that described a method for transferring data referred to as Filiatrault.
Judge Mellor had focused purely on the "outcome" of the size of the data transferred, rather than the process, InterDigital argued. While the two processes would sometimes arrive at the same size "blocks" of data, it did not impose the same limitations to arrive at that outcome, according to InterDigital counsel.
While Judge Birss was not entirely convinced that this point would impact the prior judgment, InterDigital was granted an appeal on these grounds.
Lenovo's counsel argued that, in both InterDigital's patent and Filiatrault, the data is being similarly limited, but this did not sway the Court of Appeal's decision to hear the challenge.
The dispute over this particular 3G patent is tied to an overarching validity and licensing dispute between InterDigital and Lenovo over both 3G and 4G patents.
InterDigital had originally sued Lenovo for infringing its patents, claiming that it illegally used technology covered by its telecom IP.
It had accused Lenovo of not taking a license for both its 3G and 4G patents on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory, or FRAND, terms — which are established by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute.
Lenovo, meanwhile, challenged the validity of 3G and 4G patents. InterDigital did persuade the High Court that its 4G patents were valid, though Lenovo has separately won permission to challenge that part of the decision.
Representatives for Lenovo did not immediately respond to requests for comment Thursday.
The patent-in-suit is European (UK) Patent No. 3,355,537.
InterDigital is represented by Adrian Speck KC, instructed by Gowling WLG.
Lenovo is represented by James Abrahams KC and William Duncan of 8 New Square, instructed by Kirkland & Ellis LLP.
The case is InterDigital Technology Corp. and others v. Lenovo Group Ltd. and others, case number HP-2019-000032, in the Court of Appeal of England and Wales.
--Editing by Ellen Johnson.
