InterDigital filed a patent infringement action in the United Kingdom against Huawei seeking, among other things, a determination of fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms for a license to InterDigital’s portfolio of 3G, 4G and 5G standards-essential patents (SEPs).
The InterDigital patents asserted are:
- European Patent (UK) 2 363 008 – Enables the efficient control of carrier aggregation in 4G (LTE). In advanced mobile phones, carrier aggregation is key to achieving high data rates.
- European Patent (UK) 2 557 714 – Supports the use of multiple antennae transmissions in 4G (LTE). The patent enables the use of flexible levels of error protection for reporting by the handset, increasing the reliability of the signaling.
- European Patent (UK) 2 485 558 – Allows mobile phone users quick and efficient access to 4G (LTE) networks. One of the main technological challenges of developing LTE networks was efficient bandwidth usage for various traffic types such as VoIP, FTP and HTTP. This patent relates to inventions for quickly and efficiently requesting shared uplink resources — for example, reducing lag when requesting a webpage on a smartphone on LTE networks.
- European Patent (UK) 2 421 318 – Relates to an enhancement to 3G known as High Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA), where efficient, fast scheduling of resources is key to optimizing the user’s experience. The patented invention decreases latency during HSUPA transmission by eliminating certain scenarios in HSUPA where scheduling requests may be blocked. A blocked scheduling request may prevent a smartphone from sending data.
- European Patent (UK) 3 355 537 – Also relates to HSUPA. The patented invention increases efficiency of bandwidth usage during HSUPA transmission by ensuring that mobile phones do not utilize resources allocated to them for HSUPA transmission in an inefficient manner.
“InterDigital is committed to constructive, arm’s-length negotiation, fair licensing, and the use of impartial arbitration when parties are simply unable to reach agreement,” said William J. Merritt, President and CEO. “We’re also committed to having our significant intellectual property and contributions to standards respected and enforced. We’re hopeful that Huawei will choose to resolve this situation through arbitration or negotiation, rather than holding out or through litigation in a favorable court, especially given the significant history of negotiation and arbitration involving the two companies.”