“Apple has won a strategically important modification to a recent dismissal of a FRAND contract lawsuit in the Western District of Wisconsin,” Florian Mueller reports for FOSS patents.
“As per an order entered late on Wednesday, the district court’s final ruling, which was originally stated in a minute order as a dismissal with prejudice, has been modified so as to be a dismissal without prejudice as far as the claims Apple wanted to take to trial are concerned,” Mueller reports. “This was key to enable Apple to preserve its FRAND defenses against Google’s (Motorola Mobility’s) ongoing or future infringement actions over standard-essential patents (SEPs).”
Mueller reports, “If Judge Crabb meant (and I’m not suggesting that this is the reason, just speaking hypothetically) that a dismissal with prejudice would have been too much of an encouragement for Google to keep on suing Apple for SEP infringement (without having to overcome at least certain FRAND defenses and fend off certain FRAND counterclaims), then I would agree that this would indeed have made arbitration less likely to happen (and it’s difficult enough to work out even under the current circumstances).”
Much more in the full article here.
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