Patent holding company IPCom has since sued Apple Inc and other mobile device makers across the glove over technology it has acquired from Robert Bosch GmbH in 2007. IPCom is currently waging a £2.2 billion licensing war with the technology giant over the use of one or three bits of software being used in wireless networks, said Bloomberg. According to Presiding Judge Holger Kircher in a Mannheim, Germany hearing today, the outcome of the lawsuit will be determined on the limitation of the technology.
Kircher reportedly said in a German court that IPCom could win over Apple if the former will be able to convince the court that the patent is not limited to technology using just a single bit of coding. The patent in question is the technology used in mobile networks when more than one call can be placed at one time.
"One or three bits, that's the key issue here. We will issue a separate ruling on this -- which means we won't even touch the question today of what amount of damages would be warranted in case of an infringement finding," Kircher stated.
According to Bloomberg, patent "100A" had been struck down in 2012 by the European Patent Office after Apple, Vodafone Group Plc, Ericsson AB, Nokia Oyj and HTC Corp contested the patent. IPCom later appealed and a hearing was granted about the patent. Kircher said that last month, the EPO upheld the patent while narrowing the intellectual property's scope.
IPCom's managing director Bernhard Frohwitter, on behalf of his company, insisted their right to the patent and dismissed the need for a clear definition. He told the court, "It doesn't really matter how many bits are used, the patent is talking about one set of information, not about the number of bits used to code that information."
Lawyer Wolrad Prinz zu Waldeck und Pyrmont for Apple raised an argument that the patent's language was restricted to just one bit as compared to 3G's three-bit standard use. He also said that the court should not allow an interpretation that explains beyond of what the patent's actual language was granted for.
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