After two years, InterDigital, Inc. lost antitrust and patent litigations against Huawei Technologies Co. in Chinese court and the United States International Trade Committee (ITC). InterDigital is a wireless research and development company, which according to Lawrence Shay, President of InterDigital’s patent holding subsidiaries, has entered into agreements with manufacturers such as Huawei, Nokia, and ZTE Co, to give them access to a patent portfolio of approximately 19,000 issued patents and patents applications. Huawei and ZTE are among the top Chinese manufacturers of telecommunication hardware.

In June 2011, InterDigital filed a complaint with the ITC and United States District Court for the District of Delaware, alleging that Huawei, Nokia, and ZTE had conducted unfair practices, arising under Section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930 (19 U.S.C. § 1337), under which unlawful practices include the infringement of certain statutory intellectual property rights. InterDigital sought an exclusion order to prevent the defendants from bringing the products with the alleged infringement into the United States, and a cease and desist order that would bar the defendants from selling the products with the alleged infringement which are already imported into the US.

On December 5, 2011, Huawei filed a complaint to the Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court in China, alleging that InterDigital had breached the Anti-Monopoly Law of People’s Republic of China by failing to license its patents on a fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory basis.

The Chinese court reached a decision before ITC, holding that InterDigital had failed to comply with Chinese antitrust law and had engaged in unfair practices against Huawei by seeking injunction in the district court and ITC, while still forcing Huawei to accept unreasonable licensing terms with excessive loyalties. The court ordered damages for approximately $3.2 million. InterDigital appealed to Guangdong Higher People’s Court but the ruling against it was affirmed.

On December 19, 2013, ITC reached its decision after investigation, holding that Huawei, Nokia, and ZTE had not infringed InterDigital’s patent. InterDigital issued a statement condemning the ITC decision, and plans to appeal the ruling. Still, InterDigital expects a positive outcome from the case in federal court, despite being under investigation by the National Development and Reform Commission in China for violating Chinese antitrust law.

http://www.ipbrief.net/2013/12/28/two-strikes-against-interdigital/