Nokia filed a lawsuit in the Eastern District of Texas, the United States International Trade Commission, and 10 countries in Europe and Asia, including Germany, Italy, and Japan, against Apple, claiming the technology giant infringed upon 40 of its patents.

In a statement released on Wednesday, December 21, Nokia head of patent business Ilkka Rahnasto said, “Through our sustained investment in research and development, Nokia has created or contributed to many of the fundamental technologies used in today’s mobile devices, including Apple products.”

The eight patents covered in the Eastern District lawsuit are related to encoding or decoding video with the H.264 advanced video coding standard as set by the International Telecommunication Union. Apple, for its part, filed an antitrust complaint on Tuesday, December 20 in California’s Northern District against Acacia Research Corp. and Conversant Intellectual Property Management, Inc. claiming the companies were colluding with Nokia to extort money from technology companies over cellular patents. Nokia was not named as defendant in this particular lawsuit.

Our intellectual property lawyers at Gagnon, Peacock & Vereeke, P.C., who provide legal services for our clients in Dallas and Fort Worth, handle legal representation of cases that relate to the United States Patent and Trademark Office and the U.S. Copyright Office. Call our offices today at (214) 824-1414.

KAIST IP, an intellectual property management firm, filed a patent infringement lawsuit in a Texas Federal District Court against Samsung Electronics America, semiconductor company GlobalFoundries, and telecommunications equipment company Qualcomm. The firm is seeking semiconductor technology patent fees for usage of their intellectual property.

The technology under contention is an ultra-small transistor called FinFet, which is a key material when making smartphones. Many companies utilize the technology today. In 2011, Intel applied FinFet in its products and acknowledged FinFet’s technological capability to sign an official license contract in 2012. In a statement, KAIST IP said, “We proposed a contract when we developed FinFet but Samsung did not accept it. Though it started to make mobile phones using FinFet it resisted paying patent fees.”

If you need help filing a patent or suing another company for its use of your patent, get in touch with our attorneys at Gagnon, Peacock & Vereeke, P.C. by calling our Dallas offices today at (214) 824-1414.

South Korean electronics company LG Electronics Inc. was found guilty of infringing on two smart phone patents that were owned by Core Wireless Licensing.

One of the patents in discussion covers the technology that seeks to improve smart phone battery life. The award for past damages was based on the royalty that should have been given to the inventors of said patents. In this case, the inventors were Finnish multinational technology company Nokia Corp. engineers Benoist Sebire and Jyri Suvanen and the royalties are equivalent to 6 cents per unit. The amount covers sales after the release and sales of LG smart phones that have the said technologies. CEO John Lindgren of Conversant Intellectual Property Management, the parent company of Core Wireless, welcomed the development, saying he is thankful the jury saw the need to defend the rights of the Nokia inventors.

If you are facing an intellectual property suit, seek the legal services of Gagnon, Peacock & Vereeke, P.C. by calling our offices today at (214) 824-1414 to get in touch with our attorneys.

The Eastern District of Texas is on the move to crack down on nuisance lawsuits filed by patent troll companies, which are companies that try to enforce patent rights beyond the patent’s actual value or worth.

Retired District Judge Leonard Davis, who served in the Eastern District of Texas between the years 2002 and 2015, said: “The district has been the poster child for the ‘troll problem’. I think the ‘troll problem’ would exist even if we weren’t around.” Washington trade groups have been asking Congress to amend rules on where intellectual property lawsuits can be filed to lessen the number of cases held in Texas.

Also, judges have analyzed cases served by these “troll” companies against multinational firms. For instance, Judge Rodney Gilstrap dismissed infringement claims against Dell Inc. and Apple Inc. in September 2016. Iris Connex LLC, filed the suits against the tech companies and ruled it is not possible that the giant firms used Iris Connex’s camera technology.

At Gagnon, Peacock & Vereeke, P.C., we provide legal services for our clients in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex and assist clients throughout the entire process of intellectual property litigation. Hire our legal representation by calling our offices today at (214) 824-1414.

Patent licensing company Acacia Research Corporation won a $22.1 million verdict against the technology company Apple Inc. on Wednesday, September 14. An East Texas jury in Tyler ruled Apple infringed upon US Patent No. 8,055,820, which was owned by Acacia subsidiary Cellular Communications Equipment LLC. The technology company Nokia Corp. sold that particular patent to Acacia in 2013.

The jury found Apple’s infringement of the patent was intentional, meaning the judge can triple the damage award for the winning company. Acacia is said to be in the business of “patent trolling,” a practice that entails a firm buying patents from companies and using those patents to sue other companies. Following the proceeding, Acacia splits the case’s proceeds with the original patent owner, which in this case is Nokia.

Our attorneys at Gagnon, Peacock & Vereeke, P.C. help guide clients – whether as plaintiff’s or defendant’s – through litigation concerning intellectual property issues. Get in touch with a qualified member of our legal team by calling our Dallas offices at (214) 824-1414.

Judge Robert Schroeder III in Tyler, Texas has scheduled a court hearing on Oct. 16, 2016 to find out whether attorneys from Dallas’ Buether Joe & Carpenter and their patent infringement plaintiff corporate client, Marshall-based Wireless Remote Systems, should be given disciplinary action for filing a patent infringement claim because the company no longer owns the patent in question.

Winnipeg, Canada-based software company Librestream Technologies will be arguing that Wireless Remote Systems and its attorneys’ behavior “is the very kind that gives the plaintiff’s patent bar a bad name”, that they practice “patent trolling at its worst”, and that their schemes “should not be tolerated in the Eastern District of Texas or anywhere else”.

The Patent Trial and Appeals Board in 2014 ruled that Wireless Remote Systems’ ownership of patents that covered wireless video and audio data remote systems were invalid.

If you or your business are having intellectual property problems, may it be with trademark or copyright protection, or even patent litigation, get in touch with our attorneys at Gagnon, Peacock & Vereeke, P.C., who conduct legal services in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex area of Texas, by calling our offices today at (214) 824-1414.

A civil lawsuit filed on August 23 in New York by Ohio-based multinational consumer goods manufacturer Procter & Gamble Co.’s Gillette subsidiary asks the United States District Court to force competing consumer products company Edgewell Personal Care to shelve newly-launched private label razors and remove copy from their labels declaring that their razors “shave as good or better” than Gillette’s Mach 3 blades.

The lawsuit alleges that Schick’s private-label razors were manufactured while Gillette’s patent was still valid. Patent law prohibits competitors from making similar products while the patent is still in effect. Gillette argues that Schick’s products were released to the market entirely too soon after the Mach 3’s patent expired to have complied with the law. The company also rejects claims that Shick’s razors shave as well or better than theirs do.

This is not Gillette’s first patent infringement lawsuit in recent years. In 2015, Gillette filed a lawsuit against California-based razor delivery company Dollar Shave Club for allegedly infringing on Gillette’s hundred patents. Gillette also sued ShaveLogic Inc. last year, after four of it’s former employees moved to the budding company. They were accused of breaching their contracts and sharing trade secrets with their new company.

If you believe your patents are being infringed upon, contact the Dallas patent infringement attorneys at Gagnon, Peacock & Vereeke, P.C. We also handle intellectual property cases pertaining to trade secrets, domain name disputes, patents, trademarks, and copyrights, among others and we are ready to help you through the dispute. Call our offices today at (214) 824-1414.

The Dallas Court of Appeals refused to recognize a Texas “patent-agent” privilege that was recently adopted by the Federal Circuit in Queen’s University at Kingston despite a lengthy dissent by Justice Evans.

Silver claims that he invented and owns patents for the technology in a device called “Ziosk,” which enables restaurant patrons to make meal orders, play games, and pay the bill from their tables. Silver and Tabletop Media, LLC, a corporation that serves as the marketer for Ziosk, filed a lawsuit against each other in state court for breach of contract. Tabletop discovered over 300 emails between Silver and his non-attorney patent agent who sought the Ziosk patents. When a trial court rejected Silver’s claims that those emails were privileged, he sought mandamus in the Dallas Court of Appeals.

At Gagnon, Peacock & Vereeke, P.C., we represent clients in infringement litigation, whether as a plaintiff to stop someone from infringing upon you or as defendant to defend against false accusations of infringement. Call our offices today at (214) 824-1414 to discuss your situation and see how we can help you today.

The multinational technology company Apple Inc. won an intellectual property infringement case against Nevada-based intellectual property specialist VirnetX last Tuesday, August 2.

Apple and VirnetX have been involved in an intellectual property battle for some time now. Initial damages of $368 million were awarded to VirnetX in 2012. This amount would have nearly doubled to $625.6 million this year if VirnetX won last week’s case, which stemmed from VirnetX’s claims that the technology used in Apple’s FaceTime service and versions of iMessage belong to VirnetX. Instead, United States District Judge Robert Schroeder ruled that the original trial between Apple and VirnetX was unfair and nixed the $625 million claim VirnetX had on Apple. Schroeder set another trail for the case for Monday, September 26.

If you need a lawyer to help you navigate the complex world of intellectual property, get in touch with the attorneys at Gagnon, Peacock & Vereeke, P.C.. We handle matters such as patents, trademarks, and copyrights in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. Find out more by calling our offices today at (214) 824-1414.

The technology company BlackBerry Ltd. filed a lawsuit last Tuesday, August 2 against Avaya Inc. for patent infringement in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Dallas.

BlackBerry claims the patents Avaya infringed upon include 9143801, 8964849, 8116739, 8886212, 8688439, 7440561, 8554218, and 737296, which BlackBerry filed between 1998 and 2012. In the complaint, BlackBerry alleges that Avaya used BlackBerry’s technology in multiple products and that they want to be reimbursed for the illegal actions done by Avaya.

In a letter to Avaya on Dec. 17, 2015, BlackBerry told the company of their complaints before they filed for legal action. BlackBerry CEO John Chen said they are extremely proud of their patents, as, “Throughout its history, BlackBerry has demonstrated a commitment to innovation, including through its investments in research and development, which have totaled more than $5.5 billion over the past five years. BlackBerry has protected the technical innovations resulting from these investments, including through seeking patent protection.”

If you have a case concerning intellectual property litigation, such as trademark or copyright protection, in the Dallas Fort Worth-Metroplex, get in touch with the attorneys at Gagnon, Peacock & Vereeke, P.C.. Learn more about what we can do for you and the legal services we offer by calling our offices today at (214) 824-1414.