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January 20, 2011, 6:39 AM EST
By Erik Larson and James Lumley
Jan. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Nokia Oyj, the world’s biggest maker of mobile phones, won a U.K. appeals court ruling invalidating two European patents held by the German intellectual property holding company IPCom GmbH & Co.
IPCom, which acquires patents and licenses them to manufacturers, went against the European “trend” for companies to “put up their cases in time for them to be dealt with fairly,” the Court of Appeal ruled today in London, upholding a lower-court decision.
“What IPCom seeks to do here is quite contrary to that trend, as well as being an abuse of process,” Justice Robin Jacob said in the ruling. “The message is: ‘put up in time, or shut up.’”
The two companies are involved in patent litigation around Europe as IPCom seeks royalties for a portfolio of mobile- technology patents it acquired from Robert Bosch GmbH in 2007. IPCom acquired the patents after Bosch’s negotiations to license them to Nokia broke down in 2003, according to the judgment.
Alistair Hammond, a spokesman for Pullach, Germany-based IPCom, declined to comment on the ruling. He said last month that the company gave up several patents in the U.K. litigation to concentrate on the most important ones.
Both companies declared victory in a separate German case after a patent court in Munich last month struck down part of an IPCom patent.
The case is: Nokia Oyj v. IPCom Gmbh, A3/2010/0454/0939/2678, High Court of Justice, Court of Appeal (London).
--Editors: Anthony Aarons, Peter Chapman
To contact the reporter on this story: Erik Larson in London at elarson4@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Anthony Aarons at aaarons@bloomberg.net.
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Jan. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Nokia Oyj, the world’s biggest maker of mobile phones, won a U.K. appeals court ruling invalidating two European patents held by the German intellectual property holding company IPCom GmbH & Co.
IPCom, which acquires patents and licenses them to manufacturers, went against the European “trend” for companies to “put up their cases in time for them to be dealt with fairly,” the Court of Appeal ruled today in London, upholding a lower-court decision.
“What IPCom seeks to do here is quite contrary to that trend, as well as being an abuse of process,” Justice Robin Jacob said in the ruling. “The message is: ‘put up in time, or shut up.’”
The two companies are involved in patent litigation around Europe as IPCom seeks royalties for a portfolio of mobile- technology patents it acquired from Robert Bosch GmbH in 2007. IPCom acquired the patents after Bosch’s negotiations to license them to Nokia broke down in 2003, according to the judgment.
Alistair Hammond, a spokesman for Pullach, Germany-based IPCom, declined to comment on the ruling. He said last month that the company gave up several patents in the U.K. litigation to concentrate on the most important ones.
Both companies declared victory in a separate German case after a patent court in Munich last month struck down part of an IPCom patent.
The case is: Nokia Oyj v. IPCom Gmbh, A3/2010/0454/0939/2678, High Court of Justice, Court of Appeal (London).
--Editors: Anthony Aarons, Peter Chapman
To contact the reporter on this story: Erik Larson in London at elarson4@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Anthony Aarons at aaarons@bloomberg.net.
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