Context: Last month we were first to find out about Avanci licensor Sol IP’s standard-essential patent (SEP) enforcement action against Chinese automaker BYD in the Landgericht München I (Munich I Regional Court) (February 19, 2025 ip fray article). Sol IP is not seeking an injunction at this stage, but explicitly reserved the right to request one at a later stage of proceeding. While most car makers have an Avanci one-stop shop license for 4G or 5G (with earlier versions of the standard always included), most Chinese car makers don’t and two industry bodies are dissuading them from taking that license (February 24, 2025 ip fray article).
What’s new: Two new lawsuits against BYD have recently been filed with the Munich I Regional Court by Japanese licensing firm IP Bridge, which (like Sol IP) is an Avanci licensor. Like Sol IP, IP Bridge is seeking damages (and an accounting to develop a damages claim) at this point, but not an injunction, though it could happen further down the road. One of the patents-in-suit has been asserted against different automakers in the past, typically always leading to settlements.
Direct impact: For BYD it now becomes a more attractive option to take an Avanci license, given that the aggregate cost of dozens of bilateral license deals would most likely exceed the pool license fee.
Wider ramifications: Just last week, Tesla lost its appeal of the dismissal of its UK FRAND rate-setting complaint against Avanci and one of its licensors, InterDigital (March 6, 2025 ip fray article).
At this point it’s difficult to find out all the details. The case numbers are 7 O 2255/2025 and 7 O 2257/2025. That means the cases have been put before the 7th Civil Chamber (Presiding Judge: Dr. Oliver Schoen (“Schön”) in German).
One of the patents-in-suit is EP2294737 (“Control channel signalling for triggering the independent transmission of a channel quality indicator”), a former Panasonic patent. It has previously been asserted in the same court against certain wireless device makers, but also car makers such as Daimler (now named Mercedes) and Ford (which settled shortly after an injunction over this patent had come down). That patent has survived various invalidity challenges and has repeatedly been deemed essential by the Munich court.
While there is some advocacy in China in favor of lower SEP royalty rates for car makers, a recent publication by a Chinese professor (in Chinese) argues that automakers and their customers derive enormous value from cellular connectivity.
The IP Bridge v. BYD complaints were filed by the Wildanger firm’s Peter-Michael Weisse, Jasper Meyer zu Riemsloh and Ole Dirks together with Hoffmann Eitle patent attorneys Dr. Georg Siegert and Dr. Markus Mueller (“Müller” in German).