After a couple of automotive-industry news from the patent litigation hotspot that is the Landgericht München I (Munich I Regional Court)--Sisvel v. Ford and IP Bridge v. Volkswagen--, I have some smartphone-related patent litigation news to share.
A spokeswoman for the Munich I Regional Court confirmed to me that three Nokia v. OPPO hearings and one OPPO v. Nokia hearing are on the court's calendar for the next few months:
Nokia v. OPPO cases pending before the 21st Civil Chamber (Presiding Judge: Dr. Georg Werner)
March 16: Nokia v. OPPO, case no. 21 O 8879/21 over EP3557917 on a "method and apparatus for providing efficient discontinuous communication"
March 16 (one hour later): Nokia v. OPPO, case no. 21 O 8880/21 over EP3396868 on a "method and apparatus for conveying antenna configuration information"
March 23: Nokia v. OPPO case no. 21 O 8891/21 over EP2080193 on "pitch lag estimation"
OPPO v. Nokia case pending before the 7th Civil Chamber (Presiding Judge: Dr. Matthias Zigann)
May 19: OPPO v. Nokia, case no. 7 O 14390/21 over EP3598819 on a "method, apparatus and system for transmitting periodic uplink information/signals"
Those are first hearings, with judgments coming down after a second hearing, which is then the actual trial. Munich first hearings are remotely comparable to Markman hearings in the United States.
This is mostly a 5G dispute. All of OPPO's patents-in-suit are 5G patents; I reported on four earlier-filed cases last summer. Nokia is partly also asserting older patents such as EP'193.
For March and May, the Mannheim Regional Court had previously scheduled some Nokia v. OPPO trials.
Nokia recently got good news from the licensing (Nordic Semiconductor negotiated an end product-level license for the willing licensees among its customers) and litigation (in that case, post-grant review) fronts. But OPPO is the OPPOsite of a soft target...
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