On Tuesday I listed a number of standard-essential patent (SEP) infringement cases brought by VoiceAge EVS against Apple, Lenovo, Motorola Mobility, and Nokia trademark licensee HMD in Munich. Two of the patents-in-suit have been asserted against all those parties, but there are also three cases against Apple over different patents. Those three cases will all be decided by the 21st Civil Chamber (Presiding Judge: Tobias Pichlmaier).
I had already mentioned that a first hearing in case no. 21 O 13503/20 would take place on April 28 unless the COVID pandemic necessitates a postponement. I've meanwhile learned from the court that the patent-in-suit in that case is EP2707687 on a "transform-domain codeblock in a CELP coder and decoder." CELP stands for code-excited linear prediction, a linear predictive speech coding algorithm.
Case no. 21 O 13505/20 had an even earlier first-hearing date: April 21. This one may already have been pushed back, but I will try to find out again next week. In that case, VoiceAge EVS is asserting EP2162880 on a "method and device for estimating the tonality of a sound signal."
The fifth patent over which VoiceAge EVS is suing Apple in Munich is EP1509903 on a "method and device for efficient frame erasure concealment in predictive based speech codecs." The case no. is 21 O 13504/20, and the court scheduled a hearing for May 12.
VoiceAge EVS is also enforcing patents in the United States, such as against Xiaomi. According to an RPX Insight report, VoiceAge faces challenges to its standing in its U.S. cases. That's just a non-issue in Munich.
VoiceAge EVS generally appears better and stronger than Uniloc, which is the most infamous patent licensing firm funded by Fortress Investment because it countless complaints.
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