On the first of the month, L2 Mobile Technologies LLC, an entity affiliated with non-practicing entity Longhorn IP (named after the official state large mammal of its home state of Texas), sued Ford Motor Company over patent infringement in the District of Delaware (Courtlistener docket overview).
Ford is not the most willing licensee among car makers. With Nokia, it once entered into a short-term license agreement that was more of a standstill agreement, and provided material to Daimler for use in its (meanwhile settled) dispute with the Finnish wireless company. Ford may prefer to lock horns with Longhorn over signing up for a license quickly, but whether that is an economically wise decision is in the eye of the beholder.
I've now been able to find out, thankfully, from the press office of the Munich I Regional Court that there is at least one standard-essential patent (SEP) action pending against Ford in Germany (and I guess it's not even the only one). In case no. 7 O 9572/21, a patent licensing firm that belongs to the Japanese government, IP Bridge, a hearing has been scheduled for late February. The patent-in-suit (EP2294737 on "control channel signalling for triggering the independent transmission of a channel quality indicator") was originally obtained by Japanese electronics maker Panasonic, which declared it essential to 4G/LTE. The same patent has previously been asserted against Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC and possibly other defendants.
Both Longhorn IP and IP Bridge are contributors to the Avanci SEP pool. Ford could kill not only two but literally dozens of birds with one stone by taking an Avanci license. This, however, does not conversely mean that Avanci itself, which doesn't hold patents and thus lacks standing to assert them, is responsible for these infringement cases in any way. IP Bridge, which is also suing Daimler, and Longhorn are licensing firms who have to deliver. They have to make deals that generate licensing income: whether they acquire patents and need to recuperate that investment and/or have a royalty-sharing agreement with those who assigned those patents to them, it's their job to sign deals and if that's not possible without going to court, they have to sue. There is no plausible theory under which Avanci would control them; much to the contrary, Avanci can only do business on terms that licensors and licensees deem acceptable. Ford seems to be extremely difficult to please, though.
Car makers can't just infringe the Avanci licensors' patents forever. If they don't take a pool license, they need bilateral licenses. If they're unwilling to do either type of license deal, it's only a matter of time until SEP holders sue them--and Ford now has to ask itself how it wants to try to persuade the courts in various jurisdictions, particularly Germany and the UK, of its willingness to take SEP licenses on FRAND terms...
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