German Court Throws Out IPCom's $2.2 Billion Lawsuit Against Apple

A German court has thrown out IPCom's $2.2 billion lawsuit against Apple, reports FOSS Patents.

Two chambers of the Mannheim Regional Court announced three rulings on standard essential patent infringement cases that IPCom brought forward. IPCom acquired the wireless patents of Bosch after it exited the car phone market and is now trying to monetize them.

Two lawsuits against Apple, including one involving a €1.57 billion ($2.2 billion) "partial" damages claim, and one against HTC (a company IPCom has been suing for about six years) were dismissed because the court concluded that Apple and HTC didn't infringe a certain IPCom patent family by implementing the 3G/UMTS standard. It's a given that IPCom will appeal, but Apple, HTC, Nokia (or soon Microsoft, which is in the process of buying Nokia's wireless devices business), Ericsson, Vodafone and others will likely continue to challenge the validity of the related patents in different fora. This will go on for some more time, unless someone settles, which Deutsche Telekom did last year but others appear to be less interested in.


More details on the decision and the specific patents involved can be found in the full report linked below...

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