HMD Global and Hogan Lovells successfully fend off Huawei lawsuits

In the dispute over SEPs for 4G and 5G, HMD Global has secured a victory against Huawei. Munich Regional Court dismissed a lawsuit filed by the Chinese mobile phone manufacturer. This marks the third dismissal in a row in the patent dispute. Meanwhile, Huawei has filed a lawsuit with the UPC.

Huawei sued HMD Global in November 2022 at the Regional Court of Munich based on three patents in its 4G and 5G portfolio. The dispute concerns EP 3 573 392, EP 2 528 366, and EP 3 407 519. The Chinese mobile communications provider claims these are SEPs.

In autumn last year, the 21st Civil Chamber dismissed the actions concerning EP 519 and 392 (case IDs: 21 O 14266/22 and 21 O 13091/22). The Regional Court Munich did not find them infringed. The Federal Patent Court dismissed parallel nullity actions filed by HMD against both patents this spring (case IDs: 4 Ni 27/23 and 5 Ni 16/23).

Appeals in both the infringement actions and nullity suits are pending.

Third time’s a charm

Huawei’s third infringement action has now also failed. The Regional Court Munich has found HMD’s products do not infringe EP 366 (case ID: 21 O 13092/22). In March, the German Federal Patent Court found EP 366 to be partly invalid, except for a claim on functionality performed at network level (case ID: 4 Ni 23/23).

The panel of judges in Munich under presiding judge Georg Werner dismissed the claim of indirect infringement by the handset device. The court ruled that, while the phone was involved in the process initiated by the network, it did not form an essential element of the claim. For this reason, the court saw no reason to rule on the FRAND objection, which was dealt with in the oral hearing.

JUVE Patent does not yet know whether Huawei will appeal. However, given the company has appealed in the previous infringement and nullity cases, including the validity judgement regarding EP 366, an appeal in the present case seems likely.

In parallel proceedings, HMD had filed a claim against Huawei at the Regional Court Mannheim based on its own patent EP 2 181 559. However, the court dismissed the claim for lack of infringement (case ID: 2 O 6/23). In addition, the Federal Patent Court limited the patent in parallel nullity proceedings (case ID: 4 Ni 15/23). The Finnish mobile phone manufacturer filed appeals in both cases but later withdrew them.

Huawei has also recently sued HMD at the UPC concerning two patents.