{"id":1408,"date":"2025-01-07T10:39:49","date_gmt":"2025-01-07T10:39:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipfray.com\/?p=1408"},"modified":"2025-01-16T07:16:48","modified_gmt":"2025-01-16T07:16:48","slug":"upc-updates-tesla-settles-with-broadcom-dyson-close-to-settling-with-sharkninja-observations-on-december-filings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipfray.com\/staging1\/upc-updates-tesla-settles-with-broadcom-dyson-close-to-settling-with-sharkninja-observations-on-december-filings\/","title":{"rendered":"UPC updates: Tesla settles with Broadcom; Dyson close to settling with SharkNinja; observations on December filings"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Context:<\/strong> Various Unified Patent Court (UPC) cases have settled, and one settlement in which the young judiciary’s role was particularly clear became known last week (January 4, 2024 ip fray<\/strong> article<\/a>). It is also, arguably, the world’s most important jurisdiction for preliminary injunctions against patent infringement (December 3, 2024 ip fray<\/strong> article<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What’s new:<\/strong> Court orders published today indicate that Broadcom has dropped its patent enforcement campaign against Tesla, and that Dyson is no longer determined to pursue its UPC infringement litigation (or at least one particular UPC case) against SharkNinja. Also, the UPC released its caseload data a few days ago, showing that December had the court’s second-highest number of new infringement complaints of calendar year 2024, though heavily concentrated in only four venues (among them, three Germany-based ones).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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  1. Tesla-Broadcom settlement<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Dyson and SharkNinja close to settling<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. UPC filing statistics for December 2024<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    1. Tesla and Broadcom (Avago) settle<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    As we recently noted (December 24, 2024 ip fray<\/strong> article<\/a>), 2024 was not a great year for Broadcom on the patent enforcement front. It has failed to make Netflix after five years of litigation in the U.S. and Germany, and it lost two UPC cases against Tesla last summer: one in the Hamburg Local Division (LD) (PDF (in German)<\/a>) and on in the Munich LD (PDF (in German)<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Recently, Tesla supplier Realtek and Broadcom (Avago) dropped their litigation in the U.S., where Realtek originally hoped to obtain an antisuit injunction to shield its blue-chip key account from Broadcom’s German patent enforcement efforts. Realtek sued in the Delaware Chancery Court; Broadcom had the matter removed to the United States District Court for the District of Delaware; and it was sent back to the equity-focused state court. An anti-antisuit injunction (AASI) thwarted Realtek’s plan anyway, but the withdrawal of all U.S. litigation between Broadcom and Realtek raised the question of whether Tesla had also settled with Broadcom. Broadcom was asserting WiFi standard-essential patents (SEPs), though the UPC decisions in the summer related to non-SEPs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Apparently it has: Broadcom has recently withdrawn a complaint filed in May 2024 with the Munich Local Division (LD) as a January 7, 2025 UPC decision (PDF (in German)<\/a>) shows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    It is unclear whether Tesla is paying royalties, or made a lump-sum payment, to Broadcom. Given the lack of success of Broadcom’s non-SEP enforcement efforts, it is possible that Tesla essentially just pays (more or less) FRAND royalties for Broadcom’s SEPs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Panel 2: Presiding Judge Ulrike Voss<\/a> (“Vo\u00df” in German), Judge Dr. Daniel Voss<\/a> (also “Vo\u00df” in German), Judge Dr. Walter Schober (Vienna, Austria) (July 20, 2024 ip fray<\/strong> interview<\/a>) and Technically Qualified Judge Steven Richard Kitchen<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Counsel for Avago (Broadcom): EIP’s Florian Schmidt-Bogatzky<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Counsel for Tesla: Quinn Emanuel’s Dr. Marcus Grosch<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    2. Dyson-SharkNinja close to settling<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    In May 2024, the Munich LD granted Dyson a preliminary injunction (PI) against certain SharkNinja vacuum cleaners (June 6, 2024 ip fray<\/strong> article<\/a>). But last month, the UPC’s Court of Appeal (CoA) overturned that one (item 2.2 of this December 7, 2024 ip fray article<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    An order entered today by the Munich LD’s first panel (PDF (in German)<\/a>) grants a stipulation to stay the proceedings and vacates both the interim conference and hearing dates. Formally, the plaintiff (Dyson) requested the stay, and attached to its motion the defendant’s (SharkNinja) written consent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    This course of action suggests that Dyson considers this enforcement action a lost cause based on the CoA decision on the PI track, and the parties just have to sort out costs. Whether Dyson will try to prevail over SharkNinja on other patents is unclear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The order was signed by Presiding Judge Dr. Matthias Zigann<\/a> in his capacity as judge-rapporteur.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Counsel for Dyson: DLA Piper’s Constanze Krenz<\/a> and Dr. Joshua Fiedler<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Counsel for SharkNinja: Freshfields’s Prince Wolrad of Waldeck and Pyrmont<\/a> (lead counsel), and Kilian Seidel<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    3. UPC receives its second-highest number of monthly infringement filings for 2024 in December<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    The UPC routinely updates its caseload overview at the beginning of every month. The most recent update (January 6, 2025 UPC news item<\/a>) shows that 20 new infringement complaints as well as three new PI motions were filed in December 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    With the exception of June 2024 (21 new infringement complaints), the December filings beat every other month in calendar year 2024. In the second half of that calendar year, no other month even exceeded 15 filings. But the December filings were heavily concentrated: 7 in the Dusseldorf LD, 6 in the Milan LD, and 3 each in the Munich and Mannheim LDs. In the previous months, filings were typically made in 5 or 6 different venues. It is fairly possible that this concentration is due to related cases having been filed near-simultaneously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Three PI motions were brought in December: two in the Munich LD and one in the Nordic-Baltic Regional Division (RD). The latter received its first PI motion to date, suggesting that PI seekers are now branching out geographically. That gamble worked out well for a relatively unknown plaintiff that won the first Mannheim patent PI ever (certainly the first for the Mannheim LD, and possibly even the first if one includes the Mannheim Regional Court, at least in many, many years) last month (December 20, 2024 ip fray<\/strong> article<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The calendar year 2024 totals are 172 infringement complaints (main proceedings) and 49 PI motions. The first number is an achievement for a court system in its infancy, yet has significant room for improvement. The number of PI motions is still substantially below the number of patent PI motions in a typical year of U.S. litigation, but with a far higher hit rate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    19 of the 49 PI motions filed with the UPC in 2024 were brought in the Munich LD (almost 40%). 13 were filed outside of Germany (27%), while only 21% (36 of 172) infringement complaints were lodged outside the country that historically gets most European patent infringement filings. One factor may be that there is at least some appellate case law now on PIs. There will be a various decisions in appeals from final judgments this year, but many cases get settled after a first-instance decision.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Broadcom and Tesla have apparently settled their patent dispute. Dyson and SharkNinja appear to be close to settling their case. And some observations on UPC filings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[55,105,28,72,54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-automotive-industry-players","category-avago-broadcom","category-l-icensors-licensees","category-tesla","category-unified-patent-court"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipfray.com\/staging1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipfray.com\/staging1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipfray.com\/staging1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipfray.com\/staging1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipfray.com\/staging1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1408"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ipfray.com\/staging1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1408\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1522,"href":"https:\/\/ipfray.com\/staging1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1408\/revisions\/1522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipfray.com\/staging1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipfray.com\/staging1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipfray.com\/staging1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}