“On Thursday (June 21), Apple filed FRAND contract and antitrust claims against HTC for the abuse of patents that are allegedly essential to the 4G/LTE standard,” Florian Mueller reports for FOSS Patents. “Apple brought those claims as counterclaims in the investigation of HTC’s second ITC complaint against Apple. Counterclaims cannot be adjudicated by the ITC. They have to be severed immediately and filed in federal court. Apple did so in a filing with the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.”
“This is a serious issue,” Mueller reports. “There will probably be more cases in the future in which companies try to use 4G/LTE-essential patents as strategic weapons or for hold-up. Lawmakers, regulators and industry players are profoundly concerned over the rampant abuse of standard-essential patents (SEP). HTC has just become the third major Android device maker to be accused of SEP abuse.”
Read more in the full article here.
The Eastern District of Virginia is known among us lawyers as the “Rocket Docket.” It moves cases along — quickly. Thus, you can expect to see prompt action in this case and, most likely, a trial within a year or even six months.
Don’t you mean the Eastern District of Texas at Tyler?
The Alexandria, Virginia court reputation is much older, if a bit tarnished lately:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3007-2004Oct2.html
The Alexandria, Virginia (Eastern District) Federal District Court
Nope. EDVA. The original Rocket Docket. And ROBC is right — the court’s motto is “justice delayed, is justice denied.” A well-run court that does not countenance delay.
Er, its not in Tyler… its in Marshal… about 60 miles up the road. Its the biggest industry there. I should know. I visited there several times.
Rocket docket is right. I was a juror on a capital murder charge (death penalty case) several years ago…and it lasted just short of two weeks. Justice is swift.
I still say those who abuse their FRAND patents should lose them to industry public domain. That would stop it mighty quick.
A win here will stop all this FRAND abuse once and for all. FRAND abusers should be compeled to pay punitive damages ( tripple) for this blatant act of bad fair (which is the deternining factor of entitlement to punitive damages ).
Bad fair= bad faith.
Hang HTC by the noose!