Philips v ASUSTEK, HTC et al [2019] EWCA Civ 2230
This was a set of three appeals from Judgments of Arnold J (as he was) concerning mobile telecommunications patents owned by Philips ([2018] EWHC 1224 (Pat), [2018] EWHC 1732 (Pat) and [2018] EWHC 1826 (Pat)). Philips had declared the patents essential to the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) standard, and in particular the sections of the Standard which relate to the operation of High Speed Packet Access (HSPA). Arnold J had held two of the patents (525 and 511) valid and infringed by mobiles operating in accordance with the pleaded standards. The third patent (659) was held to be obvious over two technical documents (T-Docs) produced by Nortel and presented to successive technical working group meetings of 3GPP.
The Defendants appealed against the Judge’s findings of non-obviousness of 525 (over a 3GPP2 TSG‑C technical document authored by Faisal Shad and Brian Classon of Motorola) and 511 (over the Physical Layer Standard for cdma2000 Release 0 version 3.0). Additionally, they appealed in respect of infringement of 511, arguing that the Judge had wrongly construed the meaning of “data transmit power” in the claims of the patent. Philips appealed the Judge’s decision that 659 was obvious over Nortel, including because the Judge had not properly considered Philips’ mindset case.
The appeals were heard by Lord Justices Patten, Floyd and Henderson. Floyd LJ gave the lead judgment, refusing all the appeals.
Mark Vanhegan QC and Adam Gamsa were instructed by Bristows for Philips.