A U.S. appeals court on Wednesday affirmed a win for Apple against allegations that imports of their devices infringe wireless-technology patents. The company’s iPhones, Apple Watches, and iPads do not violate INVT SPE LLC’s rights in two patents originally owned by Panasonic, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said. Along with Apple, HTC Corp. and ZTE Corp. were also cleared.
INVT is a patent-holding company affiliated with investment funds managed by Fortress Investment Group LLC, a SoftBank Group Corp subsidiary.
INVT filed a complaint against Apple, HTC and ZTE at the U.S. International Trade Commission in 2018, accusing their devices that comply with the LTE wireless standard of infringing its patents. It sought a ban on imports of the allegedly infringing devices.
The commission ruled for the device makers in 2020. A three-judge Federal Circuit panel upheld the decision Wednesday.
U.S. Circuit Judge Raymond Chen wrote the devices did not infringe one of INVT’s patents because they functioned differently than what is described in the patent. The devices were not capable of receiving and handling data signals in the same way as INVT’s patented technology, the appeals court said… The court found the rest of the appeal was moot because INVT’s other patent had expired.
MacDailyNews Take: HTC, ZTE, LTE… ITC? WTF, INVT SPE LLC?
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