A Mannheim court in Germany decided to dismiss the €1.57 billion or $2.2 billion lawsuit filed by a company over the technology used to determine which calls on mobile networks to prioritize, Bloomberg said.
It was noted that the court had not disclosed its reason behind the dismissal of the case filed by IPCom GmbH & Co KG. Aside from Apple, HTC Corp also had claim by IPCom in relation to the Apple lawsuit dismissed as well, the news agency said.
Bloomberg said that the rulings against the Munich-based patent holding company was a setback to its insistence of asserting its rights to the patent in question. The patent was reportedly purchased by IPCom from Robert Bosch GmbH in 2007. The central piece of the patent portfolio IPCom acquired from Robert Bosch was the "100" series, which are methods that help place emergency calls in mobile networks.
On the other hand, the lawsuit could be regarded as a nuisance to both Apple and HTC, as IPCom doesn't make any products. The firm belongs to a growing patent licensing industry that generates its revenue from patent lawsuits. In a letter to the European Union this week, Bloomberg said Apple is one of the 19 companies who had petitioned the EU to decrease the ability of patent trolls to win injunctions in intellectual property lawsuits.
IPCom managing director Bernhard Frohwitter said in an emailed statement that the company will make an appeal. Commenting about the rulings, he said, "We are more than astonished by the dismissal especially because this court, just like other courts in Germany and the U.K., found a myriad of infringements of the 100A patent."
IPCom has been arguing that device makers and phone companies had been using the patented technology in the 3G wireless standard. In Germany alone, Bloomberg said IPCom was seeking €1.57 billion from Apple in damages for using the patent. The amount sought for using the patent technology in Apple's iPads has yet to be specified, Bloomberg said.
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