Nokia’s Possible Violation of InterDigital Patents Exonerated by USITC

21st October, 2009 by adina
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The United States International Trade Commission decided to put an end to the investigation against the Finnish company Nokia for the violation of four InterDigital technology patents by using UMTS-based 3G. In addition, the ITC also rejected the judge’s ruling founding these patents valid and allowing InterDigital to claim such violations in the future. It’s not yet official if InterDigital will appeal this decision.

InterDigital has been systematically targeting many firms in the industry with claims of violation of the patents required for UMTS. They tried to link several patents to UMTS, so that if someone makes a UMTS gear, they automatically owe InterDigital money. Some companies, such as Samsung, Research in Motion and Apple accepted to pay the patent holder.

Recent ruling in the United Kingdom that also dismissed such attempts of linking InterDigital patents to UMTS may have an impact on previous cases of this genre, but no affected firm is known to have reacted by now.

The US ITC has been investigating this issue for two years now, but patent disputes can take years to resolve because corporate legal teams are very large and powerful, and justice doesn’t hurry at all.


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