Tuesday, October 8, 2013

HTC, Wi-LAN Settle Suit over Wireless Patent

Case Filed: Apr 11, 2013

Case Closed: Oct 02, 2013

Court: California Southern District Court

Judge: Dana M. Sabraw

Case Summary:
A patent infringement case was filed by Wi-LAN, a Canadian based patent licensing company against HTC, a handheld device manufacturer, for violating two of their wireless patents.  The patents involved in suit were:
  •    US8311040 entitled ‘Packing source data packets into transporting packets with fragmentation’, legally issued on Nov 13, 2012 and expiring* by Jan 15, 2022
  •    US8315640 entitled ‘Methods and systems for transmission of multiple modulated signals over wireless networks’, legally issued on Nov 20, 2012 and expiring* by May 21, 2019
The patents are currently assigned+ to Wi-LAN (source: MaxVal’s Assignment Database). The ‘040 patent generally relates to packet data communications systems and reformatting data in systems before transmission. The ‘640 patent relates to a method and apparatus for efficiently allocating bandwidth between base stations and customer premises equipment in a broadband wireless communication system.

The complaint said that, defendant manufactures wireless communication products with the 3rd Generation Partnership Project – Long Term Evolution (3GPP-LTE) standard and cites Droid Incredible 4G and Evo 4G LTE as infringing products, which fall within the scope of the claims of the ‘040 and ‘640 patents.

“By way of its infringing activities, defendant has caused and continues to cause Wi-LAN to suffer damages and Wi-LAN is entitled to recover from defendant damages in an  amount…”, the complaint said. Whereof, Wi LAN requested entry of judgment in its favor, a permanent injunction barring HTC from infringing the patents-in-suit, compensatory damages, pre- and post-judgment interest on damages, as well as attorneys' fees and litigation costs.

The parties have reached an agreement and signed a binding term sheet (“Term Sheet”) that resolves the dispute. The parties, HTC and Wi LAN jointly filed a motion to dismiss and pursuant to the stipulation filed, the Court granted and ordered the following:
  •        all claims between Wi-LAN and HTC in this action are dismissed with prejudice
  •        Wi-LAN and HTC each will bear their own costs and attorneys’ fees
See 3:13-cv-00871 for more details. To get alerts on cases filed/closed, subscribe to our Litigation Alerts.

* Expected expiration date using Patent Term Estimator, use our free tool or download our free Android app on Google Play Store.





* Expected expiration date. Patent Term Estimator is a free web-based tool that automatically calculates patent terms and expiration dates for U.S. utility patents. 
+ MaxVal offers Patent Assignment Alert service where subscribers receive email alerts when assignments relating to target applications, patents or entities of interest are recorded.

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