Nasty IDCC sued again - anyone want to read the suit let me know
InterDigital Sued Again Over Cellular Tech Licensing Rates
By Andrew Karpan · case 23CV0002
Law360 (January 4, 2023, 8:16 PM EST) -- A Swiss chipmaker is going to federal court in California all over again with accusations that InterDigital Inc. is breaking antitrust laws by demanding unfairly high royalty rates to license patents considered essential to 3G and 4G cellular tech standards.
The latest lawsuit from the Zurich company U-blox AG was entered on Tuesday and accuses InterDigital of breaking commitments to the European Telecommunications Standards Institute, a standards-setting organization, by failing to license its patents to U-blox on "fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory," or FRAND, conditions.
According to the suit, the Wilmington, Delaware-based InterDigital has collected "approximately 2,400 U.S. patents and 11,500 non-U.S. patents" and is now demanding "royalties that are discriminatory and far higher than FRAND rates."
U-blox, which makes microchips for wireless mobile devices, now wants a court in California to set what a fair licensing rate would be, and to issue an injunction "stopping InterDigital from wrongfully interfering with U-blox's customers and downstream manufacturers."
Much of the language in the lawsuit describing InterDigital's licensing practices was largely identical to language in an earlier lawsuit that the same U-blox lawyers at Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP filed against InterDigital in 2019.
Notably, the U.S. Department of Justice's Antitrust Division had quickly weighed in to that suit, telling the court that the agency planned to argue that the Swiss company's reading of antitrust laws would "unhelpfully distort licensing negotiations" and "risks undermining the incentives for innovation."
But the two companies settled later that year, before the agency's lawyers could file an official statement with the court arguing that U-blox's allegations didn't trigger their reading of antitrust law.
In the years since, leadership at the DOJ has changed.
Since taking office, Biden administration officials there have discarded a number of the Trump-era policy statements that either endorsed or discouraged seeking injunctions based on standard-essential patents, which some say has now given courts more flexibility to weigh those antitrust issues in each case.
Details about the terms or length of the deal that ended the first lawsuit were largely redacted in U-blox's complaint, but the lawsuit claims that those terms nonetheless demonstrated "to InterDigital that U-blox is ready and willing to enter into a FRAND license with InterDigital on similar terms as the previous license."
"Unfortunately, however, InterDigital is again refusing to negotiate in good faith with U-blox for a license on FRAND terms," the suit says.
Representatives for both companies did not return a request for comment.
U-blox is represented by Martin Bader, Ryan Patrick Cunningham, Stephen S. Korniczky, Ericka Jacobs Schulz and Mona Solouki of Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP.
Counsel information for InterDigital was not currently available.
The case is u-blox AG et al. v. InterDigital, Inc. et al., case number 3:23-cv-00002, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California.
--Additional reporting by Bryan Koenig and Ryan Davis. Editing by Melissa Treolo.
Case No. COMPLAINT FOR: (1) Breach Of Contract; (2) Declaratory Judgment; (3) Antitrust Monopolization In Violation Of Section 2 Of The Sherman Act; and (4) Declaratory Judgment of NonInfringement of U.S. Patent No. 8,155,067. JURY TRIAL DEMANDED '23CV0002 BEN DEB
