A regional court in Germany tossed out a $2.2 billion lawsuit filed by the licensing company IPCom against Apple for infringing its patents.
Patent infringement lawsuits are not new in the tech world. Several manufacturers have long-running battles in the courtrooms over respective patents, Samsung and Apple being one of the most popular rivals in such proceedings. A similar patent infringement case filed by a German licensing company, IPCom, was dismissed by the Mannheim Regional Court, favoring Apple. One of the two lawsuits dismissed against Apple involved a $2.2 billion "partial" damage claim. The decision puts the Cuppertino tech giant in a better place, putting IPCom's future with these patents on thin ice.
According to Florian Mueller of Foss Patents, who first reported the dismissal, IPCom sued Apple and HTC for infringing its European patent EP1841268 and German patent DE19910239, which allows a device to receive priority on a network during an emergency, even if the network is crammed. But the German court concluded that neither Apple nor HTC infringed any of the two IPCom's patents in question, which were a part of an acquired wireless patent portfolio from Bosch when the company exited the car phone market years ago.
"Two lawsuits against Apple, including one involving a €1.57 billion ($2.2 billion) "partial" damages claim, and one against HTC (a company IPCom has been suing for about six years) were dismissed because the court concluded that Apple and HTC didn't infringe a certain IPCom patent family by implementing the 3G/UMTS standard," last week's post on Foss Patents reads.
The dismissal of the lawsuit does not stop IPCom from appealing the decision, which the licensing group plans on as it uses its vast patent portfolio to generate revenue. But Apple, HTC and Nokia among other tech companies will continue to challenge the patent's validity.
Outside Germany, Apple was granted a patent for transparent glass iPhone with a wraparound display, which marks a biggest change in the company's signature design for iPhones. The patent filing shows the design has no room for physical buttons, including the home and the volume keys, reports Patently Apple.
