IPCom, Patent Trolls, Reputation Management
Is there a likelihood of confusion between IP.com Inc. and IPCom GmbH & Co. KG, a German non-practicing entity, or NPE, that is sometimes called a patent troll?
The Register, a British online journal, apparently sees the potential for confusion with the similarity of names and tries to keep its readers well-informed in this report that the British courts recently found the IPCom patents invalid in the UK.
IPCom GmbH (not to be confused with IP.com) acquired a load of patents from Bosch, and has been waving them at mobile-phone companies ever since, with limited success. This time last year, Nokia complained to the EU that IPCom wasn't playing FRAND* with the patents, some of which are necessary to the GSM standard. But IPCom sees no obligation to apply FRAND restrictions, even if Bosch agreed to them.
Clear so far? In the latest round of international patent litigation, the British High Court struck down the IPCom patents, but apparently Nokia and other defendants are not off the hook, yet. There's still the unresolved matter of the $17 Billion Dollar patent infringement case on IPCom GmbH's home field in Germany.
But wait...this just in...at Bloomberg.com
IPCom German Patent Suit Against Deutsche Telekom Put on Hold
A lawsuit against Deutsche Telekom AG, Europe’s biggest phone company, was put on hold by a German court Jan. 22 until patent authorities can review the intellectual property at the heart of the dispute.
The Regional Court of Mannheim will wait for a ruling by the European Patent Office on the validity of the patent at stake, court spokesman Joachim Bock said in a Jan. 22 interview. Patent licensing company IPCom GmbH & Co. brought the suit.
The case is part of IPCom’s effort to force mobile-phone makers Nokia Oyj and HTC Corp. to pay royalties for a portfolio of mobile technology patents IPCom acquired from Robert Bosch GmbH in 2007. The patents are part of a high-speed mobile communications standard.
Nokia this month succeeded in overturning some IPCom patents in a U.K. court and lost a bid to invalidate another patent at the European Patent Office yesterday.
IPCom sued Deutsche Telekom to make it stop selling devices that IPCom claims violate rights it owns. Nokia, HTC and other device makers are supporting Deutsche Telekom against claims by IPCom in this case, Clemens-August Heusch, a Nokia attorney, said in an interview.
Thomas Empt, a spokesman for Munich-based IPCom, said the company will comment once it has reviewed the judgment.
The patent at issue has been contested by the phone makers at the European Patent Office, said Hans-Martin Lichtenthaeler, a spokesman for Bonn-based Deutsche Telekom. Deutsche Telekom is supporting them in that proceeding, he said.
The Mannheim court in December put on hold three related suits against Espoo, Finland-based Nokia and Taoyuan, Taiwan- based HTC. HTC lost another case in February, which is now pending on appeal.
"Nokia and IPCom: more fun before the EPO, but what's going on?" muses IPKat.
Here on Securing Innovation, we've blogged about this IPCom case since day one, to make it clear that our company, IP.com is NOT suing Nokia for $17.7 Billion Dollars, and to deal head-on with the likelihood of confusion with the name IPCom.
We're not the first company, and won't be the last, to use the power of the Internet, blogs, and social media for reputation management.
You've got to speak up for yourself.
In other news, from the land of the mythical patent troll, comes this bedtime story for intellectual property lawyers.
General Patent Video Hits back at ‘Patent Troll Myth’
General Patent Corp., an IP-licensing and enforcement organization, posted a video on its Web site debunking what it calls “The Myth of the Patent Troll.”
The term “Patent Troll,” first used by Peter Detkin when he was head of litigation at Intel Corp., is a pejorative term used to describe patent owners who don’t make products covered by their patents and sue others who do make products. Another term frequently used is “non-practicing entity.”
Detkin is now a vice chairman at Intellectual Ventures, a company based in Bellevue, Washington, that has amassed a large number of patents and does not itself make any products.
Suffern, New York-based General Patent, which has been a plaintiff in a number of patent-infringement actions and doesn’t manufacture products, has sometimes been called a patent troll. The General Patent video claims that corporations “infringe patents with impunity” and refers to them as “the corporate landed gentry.”
The patent troll “is just a myth,” according to the video.
In June 2009, General Patent brought former U.S. Commissioner of Patents Bruce Lehman onto its board.
Sleep tight.
