One claim of a European InterDigital patent is essential to the 3...
One claim of a European InterDigital patent is essential to the 3G WCDMA standard by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute, but the patent’s second claim and three other patents are not, the English High Court ruled last week after…
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reviewing a Nokia lawsuit against InterDigital. Both parties declared victory. The decision means Nokia will have to pay royalties on the InterDigital patent ruled essential, InterDigital said. And “this is the first ruling by a court of law finding any patent to be essential to the 3G standard,” said Chief Legal Officer Lawrence Shay. Nokia also said it was pleased. “The outcome of the case, pending a possible appeal, will be a declaration that the vast majority of the patents InterDigital had declared so far to ETSI as essential… are not essential,” a spokeswoman said. “It was found that one claim of one patent was essential, however, in order to do so, the judge had to interpret the claim very broadly so that it covered the standard,” she added. “This interpretation calls into question the validity of the patents, which was not an issue at the hearing… Nokia now has the option to take future legal actions to resolve these patent validity questions.” In its original July 2005 complaint Nokia asked the court to declare 31 InterDigital patents not essential to the standard. During litigation, however, the case’s scope was reduced to four.