A German court on Tuesday dismissed a second patent infringement lawsuit filed by Qualcomm against Apple. The lawsuit was over chips used in Apple’s iPhones.
The regional court in the city of Mannheim dismissed the Qualcomm suit as groundless in an initial verbal decision, saying the patent in question was not violated by the installation of its chips in Apple’s smartphones.
Qualcomm had filed the lawsuit in German court following a successful initial lawsuit against the U.S. iPhone maker. Don Rosenberg, Qualcomm’s executive vice president and general counsel, said the company would appeal the court’s decision.
“While we disagree with the Mannheim court’s decision and will appeal, we will continue to enforce our (intellectual property) rights against Apple worldwide.”
The chipmaker has won a separate case before a German judge in December, which allowed it to enforce a ban on the sale of older iPhone models in the country.
Apple declined any comment on the decision.
Apple is in the process of appealing December’s preliminary injunction, which has forced it to pull the iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus, iPhone 8, and iPhone 8 Plus from sale in the country.
Qualcomm had been required to put aside €1.34 billion in security bonds in order to enforce the preliminary injunction. The money will be put toward Apple’s lost sales if the Cupertino firm’s appeal of the verdict proves successful.
Foss Patents’ Florian Müller – who is an expert in the field of intellectual property – had referred to the first ruling as a “nuisance lawsuit.”
The patent-in-suit is EP2460270 on a “switch with improved biasing” (“biasing” in this context basically meaning that one voltage gets to control another).
I’m not going to stay up, or get up at midnight, for a nuisance lawsuit (which is all that this one is in practical terms).