{"id":926,"date":"2024-10-24T14:30:20","date_gmt":"2024-10-24T14:30:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipfray.com\/?p=926"},"modified":"2024-10-24T14:30:20","modified_gmt":"2024-10-24T14:30:20","slug":"federal-circuit-gives-lenovo-another-chance-to-win-antisuit-injunction-against-ericssons-latin-american-injunctions-but-sidesteps-key-questions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipfray.com\/staging1\/federal-circuit-gives-lenovo-another-chance-to-win-antisuit-injunction-against-ericssons-latin-american-injunctions-but-sidesteps-key-questions\/","title":{"rendered":"Federal Circuit gives Lenovo another chance to win antisuit injunction against Ericsson’s Latin American injunctions, but sidesteps key questions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Context:<\/strong> In the summer. the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit heard Lenovo’s appeal of a district court’s denial of an antisuit injunction against Ericsson’s enforcement of Brazilian and Colombian standard-essential patent (SEP) injunctions (August 7, 2024 ip fray<\/strong> article<\/a>). As ip fray<\/strong> noted at the “time, the issuance of an antisuit injunction still didn’t appear to be the most likely outcome, but Lenovo got “more [traction] than one would have expected” and ip fray<\/strong> found it ”\u00a0surprising that the appellate panel (Judges Lourie, Prost and Reyna) didn\u2019t express stronger skepticism of Lenovo\u2019s argument than it actually did.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What’s new:<\/strong> Today. the Federal Circuit handed down its decision vacating District Judge Terrence W. Boyle’s decision (February 15, 2024 ip fray<\/strong> article<\/a>). But what Lenovo really wanted was for the Federal Circuit to hold that it was entitled to an antisuit injunction. However, the appellate decision makes it clear that the district court will have to resolve the second and third steps of the antisuit injunction framework on remand. The decision furthermore clarifies that the Federal Circuit is in no way taking a position on whether Ericsson discharged its FRAND licensing obligations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Direct impact:<\/strong> Assuming that this is the final appellate word, the district court will, on remand, have to analyze whether Ericsson’s Latin American injunctions are, for instance, vexatious and oppressive, and it will also have to decide the question of comity (i.e.,<\/em> whether it is appropriate to interfere with foreign jurisdictions). Those are still significant hurdles for Lenovo to overcome, and even though the Federal Circuit went so far as to take a position on access to injunctions under the ETSI FRAND pledge, its opinion provides zero guidance concerning the second and third antisuit factors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wider ramifications:<\/strong> The Federal Circuit today established a lower standard for the first antisuit factor (whether a U.S. case is dispositive) than what Judge Rodney Gilstrap decided in Ericsson v. Apple<\/em> (which was adopted by Judge Boyle in North Carolina in Ericsson v. Lenovo<\/em>). This means there could be more U.S. antisuit injunctions impacting global SEP disputes in the future. Interestingly, the European Commission is complaining to the World Trade Organization (WTO) over Chinese antisuit injunctions, but may have to consider bringing a similar complaint over U.S. antisuit case law if today’s decision is symptomatic of a trend. And there is not just this U.S. antisuit injunction bid: Lenovo is also trying to obtain an interim-license declaration in the UK along the lines of what Xiaomi won against Panasonic three weeks ago (October 3, 2024 ip fray<\/strong> article<\/a>), just that there, again, the key difference is that both parties had committed to take a license on court-determined terms.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Here’s the Federal Circuit opinion:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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