This week in Huawei v. Samsung delivered two more setbacks for the Chinese Android device maker and increasingly aggressive patent enforcer (I don't want to call them a "patent bully" just yet, though it may be an appropriate label at a later stage).
First, the trial that Judge William H. Orrick will preside over in the Northern District of California in December is going to be far narrower, and potentially less impactful, than Huawei had hoped. As I had noted toward the end of this recent post, Huawei previously informed of the court of its willingness to withdraw its request for a declaratory judgment on worldwide FRAND licensing terms to its standard-essential patents, subject to an agreement with Samsung on the specifics. That agreement has indeed materialized, suggesting that Huawei saw a high risk of Judge Orrick throwing out the claim (whose dismissal Samsung was already formally seeking) at any rate. Instead of having to make a decision, Judge Orrick merely had to grant the parties' stipulation of a dismissal that is formally without prejudice, allowing Huawei to try again, but only in a different case and not for at least nine months (this post continues below the document):
18-07-18 Stipulated Dismissal of Huawei-Samsung FRAND Claim by Florian Mueller on Scribd
Just last month, Huawei's offensive case already got narrowed as Judge Orrick, in a matter involving the Supreme Court's recent SAS ruling, stayed two patent infringement claims. So all that's left for the December trial is a bunch of patent infringement claims and the question of a potential breach of a FRAND licensing commitment. Huawei portrays Samsung as an unwilling licensee, and Samsung argues that Huawei's demands are unreasonable and that there hasn't been enough progress of the give-and-take kind.
The second thing that didn't go too well for Huawei this week was its attempt to expedite its Ninth Circuit appeal before the Federal Circuit of the antisuit (more specifically, anti-injunction-enforcement) injunction Samsung obtained three months ago. Huawei was using two procedural attack vectors in parallel, seeking a reconsideration of Judge Orrick's decision in district court while pursuing the aforementioned appeal in Washington, D.C.--but the Federal Circuit told Huawei it should firstly await resolution of its motion in San Francisco. After Judge Orrick's decision to uphold the injunction, Huawei informed the Federal Circuit, which then resumed the proceedings, and Huawei, before even filing an opening brief that isn't publicly accessible yet, brought an emergency motion to expedite the appeal.
Samsung opposed this emergency motion, arguing that Huawei's procedural tactics had caused delay and pointing to the prejudicial effects of having to respond to a Huawei opening brief on a tight schedule, three months after the notice of appeal (meaning Huawei had plenty of time to prepare its argument) and while working hard on some motion practice in the district court case the appeal originated from. The Federal Circuit told Huawei to be patient and suggested that it could file its reply brief as soon as possible--ahead of the court's deadline--after Samsung has had the chance to react to the opening brief. The appeals court will then hold a hearing as soon as possible, but just like Judge Orrick, it doesn't accomodate all of Huawei's procedural preferences.
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