InterDigital today amended two complaints pending in the federal District of Delaware so as to assert an additional wireless patent against Samsung and Nokia. The amendments were filed in two lawsuits the non-practicing entity instigated in January through companion (mirror) complaints to its latest ITC complaint. InterDigital asserted seven patents against Samsung but only three against Huawei and ZTE and only one against Nokia because these three defendants were previously sued over the other patents.
An ITC judge just denied a motion for a stay that Huawei and ZTE had brought and Nokia had joined. Meanwhile InterDigital is stepping up its enforcement efforts through the new assertion of U.S. Patent No. 8,380,244 on a "dual mode unit for short range, high rate and long range, lower rate data communications" against Samsung and Nokia. At the time of publication of this post, the complaints against Huawei and ZTE had not yet been amended, and if InterDigital also amended its ITC complaint, it has not yet shown up on the trade agency's electronic document system.
The '244 patent is a continuation patent of U.S. Patent No. 7,616,970 (same title), which InterDigital already asserted against Samsung in January and against Nokia (as well as Huawei and ZTE) in 2011 (and which is also a continuation patent). The United States Patent and Trademark Office granted the '244 patent only three weeks ago (on February 19, 2013).
[Update] The following day an InterDigital motion showed up on the ITC's electronic document system. The motion asks for permission to assert the '244 patent against all respondents (Samsung, Nokia, Huawei and ZTE) and says that the defendants oppose this amendment. [/Update]
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