German court stays Qualcomm patent infringement suit against Apple; patent-in-suit likely invalid

“The real showdown between Apple and Qualcomm will take place in San Diego starting April 15, with Apple stressing antitrust, FRAND and patent exhaustion arguments while Qualcomm seeks to emphasize various contracts it used to have or still has in place with Apple and its four contract manufacturers,” Florian Mueller writes for FOSS Patents. “But in addition to that one, infringement cases are pending in multiple jurisdictions (U.S., Germany, China) because Qualcomm hoped to gain leverage over Apple ahead of the San Diego trial. False hopes, as we know by now.”
“Today the Mannheim Regional Court (in German: Landgericht Mannheim) ordered a stay of the case in which Qualcomm is asserting the German part of its European patent EP3036768 on a ‘layout construction for addressing electromigration’ against Apple,” Mueller writes. “The infringement proceedings are stayed until a decision by the Federal Patent Court of Germany on Apple and Intel’s nullity complaint (or any alternative resolution of the validity action). In their efforts to get that Qualcomm patent invalidated, Apple and Intel are represented by patent attorneys from Samson & Partner, for whom this order to stay the case is a victory, at least for the time being.”
“It’s very unusual for the Mannheim court to make a decision well over four months (actually, almost five) after a trial. However, in this case the reason was that the court had serious doubts about the validity of this patent anyway, but rather than stay the case immediately, the court wanted to give the parties more time so that further progress in the parallel nullity action could be made,” Mueller writes. “Qualcomm’s first six patent assertions against Apple in Germany (technically nine, but four of those patents are from the same family) have been a failure.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Tick-tock, Qualcomm extortionists. Your time of reckoning is coming.
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