Maxwell Keay acted in the counsel team for the claimants, Interdigital, in this patent trial. This technical trial was the first in a series of trials concerning five patents in the field of 3G and 4G telecommunications, with further technical trials and a FRAND trial due to follow. This trial concerned European Patent (UK) No 2 485 558 entitled “Method and apparatus for providing and utilizing a non-contention based channel in a wireless communication system”.
Lenovo imports 4G devices into the UK and markets those devices here. InterDigital’s position was that the 558 patent is essential to the LTE (4G) system, and so Lenovo’s acts constituted infringment of the 558 patent. Lenovo denied infringement and claimed that the 558 patent was invalid for lack of novelty, lack of inventive step and insufficiency. InterDigital made a conditional application to amend the patent.
His Honour Judge Hacon, sitting as a High Court Judge, rejected all of Lenovo’s attacks on the 558 patent as granted and held that the 558 patent was valid. The LTE system falls within claim 1 of the patent and as a result the patent was held to be essential to LTE. Following that finding, it was unavoidable that Lenovo’s devices fall within the claims of the 558 patent. The application to amend the patent, which fell away in light of that finding, would have failed for added matter. The patent was held to be valid, essential and infringed.