Patent licensing company, InterDigital has won the case according to U.S. International Trade Commission judge decision.
The latest round of potentially very expensive legal battle over patents relating to Microsoft phones has now been lost by the company as a U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) judge has ruled in favor of InterDigital Inc.
InterDigital sued Microsoft with claims that its patents for mobile devices were being used without permission.
The judge in question, Theodore Essex, decided that the Microsoft phones were infringing on two different patents having to do with wireless cellular technology and that were owned by InterDigital, a patent licensor that has been accused of being a “patent troll”. The judge also ruled that banning Microsoft from importing those mobile devices into the United States would not be against public interest.
Before the ruling against Microsoft phones is set in stone, it must first be reviewed by the full commission.
This means that the entire committee will first need to conduct a review on the case before Microsoft mobile devices can be banned from being imported. The ITC does have the authority that would be required to implement such a ban if it decides that a U.S. patent has been infringed upon.
It has become common practice for many companies to sue through the ITC in order to be able to win damages as well as to be able to put an import ban into place within a district court. InterDigital is based in Wilmington, Delaware and had initially made its accusations of patent infringements against Nokia Corp, in 2007. That said, in 2014, Microsoft purchased the handset division at Nokia, and InterDigital shifted its attentions to that new company.
The patents involved in this lawsuit have to do with the way that the power of a Microsoft phone is moderated in order to be able to reduce interference with the device signal. Originally, Nokia was cleared of infringement by the ITC, but that decision was later overturned by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, in 2012. That is the top patent court in the United States, and it has caused the ITC to have to take a look at the decision, yet again.
Though rumors have been circulating that the company would get back into mobile devices, they have been denied.
Technology news reports have been made, suggesting that Nokia has been interested in stepping back into the world of smartphone manufacturing, but according to the company’s own officially released statements, those reports are nothing more than rumors.
The communication technology company based in Finland has denied the claims in a very direct way.
The technology news statement from Nokia was very straightforward in the language that it used to restate that it does not have any intentions to either manufacture or sell smartphones within the consumer market. The sources that were cited in previous reports were anonymous and had claimed that the company could be making its way back into consumer smartphones as soon as 2016. That said, the company did not tiptoe around the subject, but rather took a very direct stance at shooting that idea right out of the water.
Nokia’s technology news statement acknowledged the reports and said, under no uncertain terms, that they are not true.
About the reports that Nokia would be making consumer mobile devices in a Chinese R&D facility, it stated that “These reports are false, and include comments incorrectly attributed to a Nokia Networks executive.” Later, to be certain that it had made itself absolutely clear, it went on to add that “Nokia reiterates it currently has no plans to manufacture or sell consumer handsets.” Obviously, this statement leaves very little room for doubt about the company’s present plans.
Indeed, the statement did use the term “currently”, which does imply that one day the intentions of the company could change, but it also shows that at the moment, among all of the plans that the company may be making, entering the consumer smartphone market is not one of them.
Among the drivers behind the false technology news reports was the upcoming expiration of the agreement that exists between Nokia and Microsoft, which stated that Nokia is not permitted to use its brand name on cellular phones until the close of the last quarter of 2016.
