Koninklijke Philips v Asustek and HTC [2018] EWHC 1224 (Pat)
Philips alleged infringement by HTC and ASUS of three Patents, which it had declared essential to the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) standards, in particular the sections that relate to High Speed Packet Access (HSPA/3.5G). This was the first technical trial, concerning the validity of the EP’525 Patent. The invention of the EP’525 Patent relates to base station power control of acknowledgement messages (ACKs and NACKs) transmitted by a mobile phone as part of a Hybrid Automatic Repeat reQuest (HARQ) scheme. HTC and ASUS accepted infringement but contended that the EP’525 Patent is obvious over two pieces of prior art: a temporary document submitted by Motorola to the 3GPP TSG-RAN Working Group 1 and 2 ad hoc meeting in Sophia Antipolis held on 5 and 6 April 2001 and a contribution submitted by Motorola to the 3GPP2 TSG-C meeting in Montreal held between 9-13 July 2001. Arnold J held the EP’525 Patent to be valid over the pleaded prior art notwithstanding a finding of invalidity of the Dutch equivalent of the EP’525 Patent in the Netherlands.
Mark Vanhegan QC and Adam Gamsa were instructed by Bristows for Philips