With the Nokia v. OPPO/OPPO v. Nokia dispute still ongoing, decisions keep coming in. At the beginning of this week, I reported on the Mannheim Regional Court's confirmation of the dismissal of one Nokia v. OPPO complaint, and just before the weekend I've discovered on the website of the European Patent Office that on January 3, the Opposition Division of the EPO--further to an oral hearing held on November 15, 2022--revoked Nokia's EP3298744 on "enhancing data transfer".
All claims were invalidated, and Nokia was not able to salvage the patent in an amended (narrowed) form. Nokia can appeal the decision, though.
It's not the first and probably not the last Nokia patent to come under the revocation wheels as a result of OPPO's opposition filings. In October I reported on preliminary opinions by the USPTO and the EPO according to which another Nokia patent is invalid.
A Chinese website reported in November that OPPO is seeking the invalidation of (at least) 10 Nokia patents. In 9 of those cases, OPPO is the primary challenge, and in a 10th case, OPPO joined proceedings started by other parties (Daimler and its supplier TomTom; Daimler obviously dropped out after a settlement with Nokia). What I have also found now in the EPO Register is a November 23, 2022 notice according to which EP3092836 on a "method and apparatuses for delivering a trigger report for machine type communications". That patent is also listed on ETSI's website. The revocation notice states that the Opposition Division took Nokia's proposed amendments into account, but revoked the patent nonetheless.
No settlement in sight, but more patents to be invalidated or held not to be infringed? We'll see.
