Lenovo v InterDigital
[2024] EWHC 1036 (Pat)
03 May 2024
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The Patents Court (Richards J) has handed down a judgment dismissing InterDigital’s application contesting the Court’s jurisdiction. The Court found that there is a reasonable prospect of success that Lenovo is entitled to a FRAND licence in respect of InterDigital’s entire portfolio of patents, finding that it may be discriminatory for InterDigital to offer a SEP-only licence to Lenovo if it offered licences covering its entire portfolio to other licensees.
Following on from the second FRAND determination by the English Courts Lenovo seeks a declaration as to the FRAND terms of a global licence in respect of InterDigital’s entire portfolio of patents for the period commencing 1 January 2024. InterDigital’s portfolio comprises:
- Standards-essential patents (“SEPs”) which have been declared to the European Telecommunications Standards Institute
(“ETSI”) (“Cellular SEPs”), - SEPs which have been declared to other standard-setting organisations (“SSOs”) (“Other SEPs”), and
- Patents not declared essential to any SSO (“non-essential patents” or “NEPs”).
InterDigital conceded jurisdiction in relation to the Cellular SEPs. The jurisdiction application solely pertained to the Other SEPs and NEPs. InterDigital further conceded that the application was only concerned with the merits test. Richards J found that Lenovo’s claim that it would be discriminatory for InterDigital to offer a SEP-only licence in circumstances where this was not the kind of licence InterDigital was offering to other licensees in the market (§§31, 49), passed the merits test and had a realistic prospect of success.
Michael Bloch KC, Ravi Mehta and Femi Adekoya appeared for Lenovo.
The judgment is available here.
