James Abrahams QC, James Whyte and Michael Conway appeared for the Claimants (“Optis”) and Lindsay Lane QC appeared as lead counsel for the Defendants (“Apple”) in Trial C in the ongoing proceedings between these parties. The wider proceedings relate to 8 telecommunications patents claimed to be standard-essential patents owned by Optis and the potential licensing of those patents to Apple on FRAND terms.
Trial C was the technical trial of 3 patents in the portfolio. Apple had admitted that the patents were essential and infringed in the event that they were found to be valid, so the trial only concerned the validity of the patents.
Meade J held that all of the patents were invalid for obviousness over an item of prior art referred to as “Ericsson”. He rejected Apple’s alternative obviousness attack over prior art referred to as “Knuth”, and rejected Apple’s insufficiency attack.
A further technical trial in these proceedings (Trial D) is listed to take place in 2022.