InterDigital Inc (IDCC)

[Gamco]

InterDigital sues OPPO in the UK, India and Germany over 3G/4G/5G and HEVC
2023-03-12 10:26 HKT

Remember the Christmas lawsuit between Ericsson and Samsung at this time last year? At that time, the two license agreements expired, but the new negotiations have not progressed. So Samsung took the lead in issuing a unilateral counterclaim injunction "Christmas gift" to Ericsson in the Wuhan Intermediate Court.

Ericsson was even better. During the Christmas holiday in the United States, the Texas court successfully issued a counter-suit injunction to Samsung for overtime on December 28 and responded with a "Christmas gift". The energy behind it can be seen.

But the dispute between the two companies was quickly over within half a year. But this "Christmas gift" stalk left is probably remembered by others.

I wonder if each family wants to carry forward this "SEP Christmas gift" tradition?

Just now, the documents disclosed by InterDigital to the US SEC show that on December 20th and 22nd, it has sued the Chinese OPPO company and its affiliated companies OnePlus and Realme in the UK, India and Germany, accusing it of infringing on InterDigital. 3G, 4G/LET and 5G patents, as well as HEVC patents, and seek injunctions.

Although it is very likely that there is no direct connection between InterDigital and Nokia, this kind of "group" to sue a company will obviously consume OPPO's internal resources, because fighting a lawsuit consumes the fighting power of the corporate IP department.

From the OPPO point of view, this is currently the only Chinese company that has rushed forward to resist the "5G reasonable rate" of foreign rights holders. Therefore, the joining of InterDigital this time makes me think that this is not an attempt by Western rights holders to join forces. A move to encircle and suppress China's "pioneer" rushing forward.

Because the future 5G coverage is too wide, the US think tank had a special report in November to recommend to the US government , so if the 5G rate OPPO fails to take the lead in setting a reasonable range, I am afraid that many Chinese companies will have to follow suit.

Since 2019, InterDigital has sued Huawei, Lenovo and Xiaomi, all in the United Kingdom. It seems that InterDigital prefers the rulings of the British courts.

On August 3 this year , it reached a settlement with Xiaomi and also signed a package license agreement including 3G, 4G, 5G, WiFi and HEVC video technology.

The litigation with Lenovo is still ongoing. In a latest ruling in a British court on the 16th of this month, a British judge rejected InterDigital's request for an injunction against Lenovo, but this is only one of the five patent litigations of both parties. The "bad war" between the two sides is still going on.

Therefore, InterDigital continues to sue OPPO before completing the litigation with Lenovo, which is also a considerable expense for it.

But in order to receive royalties, InterDigital also has a budget for "war" each year.

For example, its financial report shows that in 2019, InterDigital filed a lawsuit with ZTE, Huawei and Lenovo, and sued Xiaomi in 2020. This has caused InterDigital's IP enforcement costs in 2020 to rise from US$25.4 million in 2019 to US$28.6 million, accounting for 17% of its total patent management and licensing costs (US$170.2 million) in 2020.

According to InterDigital's financial report, in 2020, revenue from Apple, Samsung, and Huawei accounted for 31%, 22%, and 15% of its license fee income that year, reaching 111.7 million U.S. dollars, 78.5 million U.S. dollars and 52.1 million U.S. dollars, respectively. The fourth place LG contributed more than 30 million U.S. dollars.

So it's not clear whether this is a battle for Christmas gifts, or whether InterDigital also wants to learn from China's surprise spending at the end of the year.

https://min.news/en/digital/8c6eabc7dcfa4b5a0a24a5fda385c07c.html