Pantech Corporation has filed separate Eastern District of Texas complaints against HMD Global (5:25-cv-00092), Lenovo (5:25-cv-00093), OnePlus (5:25-cv-00089), Shenzhen Tinno Mobile Technology (5:25-cv-00090), and TCL (5:25-cv-00091), as well as a complaint before the International Trade Commission (ITC) proposing the same companies as respondents (337-TA-3835). The Ideahub, Inc. plaintiff targets the provision of smartphones and other equipment "compliant with LTE, LTE-A, and/or 5G cellular network standards" within the "past six years". The plaintiff also seeks claims for breach of FRAND obligations and unjust enrichment against each defendant except OnePlus, which is already a defendant in this campaign.
Four wireless communications patents are asserted in these new complaints (9,548,839; 11,051,344; 11,659,503; 12,267,876), with only the '839 patent appearing previously in the campaign (including, as recounted below, against OnePlus, which has already been found to have infringed it). Early defendants in this campaign include ASUSTek, BLU Products, Coolpad Group, and GNJ Manufacturing, with more than three dozen patents asserted through 2022 complaints filed separately against LG Electronics and OnePlus, into a second complaint against OnePlus filed in March 2024 and now this 2025 wave.
This past January, Eastern District of Texas Judge Robert W. Schroeder III entered judgment in the first of the three Pantech cases filed against OnePlus. The court awarded Pantech and its subsidiary Pantech Wireless, LLC $1M in damages, consistent with a second jury's verdict in a damages retrial, based on the infringement findings of a first jury. That first jury found that OnePlus infringed three standard essential Pantech patents (the '839; 10,869,247; and 11,012,954 patents, with related damages totaling $739.7K) and one non-standard essential patent (9,063,654, for $260.3K), but on posttrial motions, Judge Schroeder ordered a damages retrial, throwing out the original $10.4M awarded. The court also granted OnePlus judgment as a matter of law of no infringement of a fifth patent (8,983,052, not retried) and rejected a request to impose a remittitur as to damages for the other four.
Background concerning the first verdict can be read at "IdeaHub's Pantech Secures Jury Verdict, Faces New Standing Challenge" (April 2024). Pantech Wireless (a Texas entity) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Pantech Corporation (a South Korean entity), which is itself wholly owned by Ideahub, Inc. (d/b/a IDEAHUB), a patent monetization firm formed in Delaware on December 13, 2019 but based in Seoul, Korea. Kyeong-su "Keith" Im is its founder and CEO. On its public website, IDEAHUB indicates that it started in 2016, advertising three services: IP monetization (transforming "outstanding, unused patents owned by customers such as universities, research institutes, and corporations into valuable assets"), sharing (helping "small and medium-sized businesses resolve patent disputes and advance overseas by sharing patents secured by [IDEAHUB]"), and investment (providing "individual investors with an investment opportunity to distribute patent royalties secured by [IDEAHUB]").
The Pantechs' various complaints describe one-time South Korean mobile phone maker Pantech as the plaintiff's predecessor-in-interest, the plaintiffs further outlining the situation: "Pantech Co., Ltd. was formed in 1991, and as the result of a restructuring and acquisition in 2015 became Pantech, Inc. Thereafter, Pantech Corporation was formed. Pantech, Inc. transferred its assets to Pantech Corporation as part of an asset sale in 2020", the complaint lumping all three entities under the umbrella "Pantech" moniker the rest of the way. To explore the formation of new plaintiff Pantech Wireless in Texas, the intermediate steps that the acquired patents took on their way into each plaintiff's hands, and the connections between the two Pantechs, to each other as well as to IDEAHUB (and Glocom, Inc.), see "Apparent Glocom NPE Acquires InterDigital Portfolio" (July 2021).
In May 2020, the new Pantechs received over 200 US patent assets, developed by the old Pantech, from NPE GoldPeak Innovations Inc., and litigation over the portfolio began the next year. At the April trial, OnePlus challenged the Pantechs standing to sue it in the first place, arguing that the assignment of the tried patents from Pantech, Inc. and GoldPeak is "void" because they (and Pantech Corp.) did not comply with "assignability" clauses in earlier agreements, which purportedly "encumbered the prior owners' power to assign the asserted patents". Judge Schroeder denied this motion, in partially sealed fashion, indicating that the current Pantech plaintiffs have constitutional standing to sue, even though "this is a close issue".
The five patents tried to the April 2024 jury form a subset of the eight patents asserted in the Pantechs' original, June 2022 complaint, the plaintiffs targeting the provision of devices compliant with LTE and 5G cellular networking standards, as well as those with certain touch-based functionalities. That jury found that Pantech proved infringement of three SEPs: specifically, claims 9 and 11 of the '839 patent, claim 1 of the '247 patent, and claims 6 and 9 of the '954 patent. It also found that Pantech proved infringement of the other two patents: specifically, claims 10 and 17 of the '052 patent and claims 1, 6, and 10 of the '654 patent.
Judge Schroeder granted OnePlus's motion for judgment as a matter of law of no infringement of claims 10 and 17 of the '052 patent, noting that "OnePlus persuasively argues there are many issues with Pantech's infringement read", the "most problematic" of which being Pantech's reliance on its technical expert's ipse dixit testimony to show the presence of a required "event table" structure in the accused products. The court turned away the challenges to the jury's remaining infringement findings, but it could not find a way to properly quantify a reduced damages amount to impose a remittitur.
The court was also convinced that "there is evidence that the verdict may have resulted from passion or prejudice", at least in part because the court allowed Pantechs' lawyers to pose "excessive questions about litigation in the United Kingdom and Germany" and then the Pantechs, in their closing argument, "suggested to the jury that they should increase the damages to punish OnePlus for its holdout behavior". The original "leeway" to explore this line of questioning was granted "based on [the plaintiffs'] representation that [they] wanted to impeach a witness who testified they did not know what a 'holdout' was". However, it went too far, prompting the court to cut the questioning off, and the reintroduction of the holdout issue in closing argument triggered a sustained objection. Thus, in light of this prejudice and given the difficulty in crafting a remittitur, the court granted OnePlus a new trial on the issue of damages, which the first jury had pegged at over $10M, as noted.
The second jury, hearing just the damages issues, priced infringement of the '247, '839, and/or '954 patents at $739,708.43, of the '654 patent at $260,291.57, the two figures adding up to an even $1M, the basis of the court's later judgment. The court declined to enhance damages based on the willfulness finding and ruled that the case is not exceptional, denying Pantech's request to shift attorney fees. A second case against OnePlus, over different Pantech patents (8,995,372; 9,288,824; 9,369,251; 9,763,283; 9,769,776; 10,764,803; 10,863,573; 11,212,838) and filed this past March, has entered claim construction, with the parties wrangling over the scope of discovery of past license agreements. Pantech has filed a motion to compel, arguing that "[i]nstead of producing all 4G and 5G license agreements in good faith, OnePlus seeks to shield these documents from discovery by invoking the involvement of its parent company, OPPO, or other signatories".
OnePlus has deposited with the court roughly $1.2M in cash, rather than posting a bond, while it appeals the January judgment. It had been the only active defendant in this campaign, after a mid-August 2024 settlement ended multiple suits filed against LGE, but the litigation has now expanded markedly. Across the new complaints, Pantech pleads that it first offered to license its patents to each defendant (except Lenovo) as early as June 2020. For Lenovo, the plaintiff pleads that Goldpeak Innovations offered to license patents "owned and/or managed by Goldpeak and Pantech Inc." as early as March 2018. The patents are described as "including those essential to cellular standards such as LTE and LTE-Advanced".
As noted, Pantech pleads a claim for breach of a FRAND obligation against all but OnePlus. It pleads that each of HMD, TCL, and Shenzhen Tinno has "availed itself of the [European Telecommunications Standards Institute, ETSI] policy and became subject to [ETSI Rules of Procedure] Annex 6 at Clause 3.2 and French Law concerning obligations under this policy by communications with Pantech in which it invoked FRAND protections". The French Law there is described as follows:
. . . if an implementer of standard essential technology declares or otherwise indicates that it wishes to have a license on FRAND terms for the SEPs that were the subject of the FRAND undertaking, it avails itself of the ETSI policy, including Annex 6 at Clause 3.2, and becomes a beneficiary of it. An implementer of an adopted standard who has availed itself of FRAND protections and thereby invokes French legal protections but fails to negotiate in good faith towards a patent license agreement and thereby prevents a license from being granted on FRAND terms is liable to the patent holder for damages, including but not limited to attorney's fees and the cost of litigation.
By contrast, Pantech pleads that Lenovo is a signatory to ETSI and therefore subject to the ETSI Rules of Procedure. As such, "Lenovo is and has been obligated to negotiate in good faith towards a patent license agreement for these patents on FRAND terms, which it has not done". In its ITC complaint, Pantech pleads more extensively about obligations in the SEP context:
The recent decision in G+ Communications LLC v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., No. 2:22-cv-00078-JRG (E.D. Tex. Jan. 22, 2024), provides important clarification regarding the reciprocal obligations of both SEP holders and implementers during FRAND licensing negotiations. There, the court held that under French law, which governs ETSI FRAND commitments, both parties are required to negotiate in good faith, and if either the SEP holder or the implementer fails to do so the other party's obligation to continue negotiations is suspended. Thus, the G+ decision underscores that exclusionary or injunctive relief may be appropriate where an implementer's bad faith conduct frustrates the FRAND licensing process, while also making clear that SEP holders are not required to continue negotiating with parties acting in bad faith.
(An entry point to RPX coverage of the G+ Communications LLC litigation can be found at "IPR and EPR Rulings Imperil Recent East Texas Verdicts in Favor of G+ Communications" (May 2024).) Here, Pantech contends that it "has made clear, repeated, and specific offers to license its SEPs on FRAND terms, provided technical claim charts, and responded to requests for information. Pantech's offers have been transparent, reasonable, and non-discriminatory, and have been validated by comparable agreements with licensees". Pantech walks through an alleged history of interactions with each of the four proposed respondents concerning its patent portfolio.
Against HMD, Lenovo, Shenzhen Tinno, and TCL, Pantech also pleads in district court that each defendant "failed to negotiate in good faith and engaged in holdout behavior to extract unfair licensing terms". In doing so, the defendant has been unjustly enriched because "it has continued to sell the accused products while invoking FRAND protections but has neither undertaken the expense of FRAND negotiations and investigation nor has it paid licensing royalties to adequately and fairly reward Pantech for the innovations of their SEP portfolio".
In its ITC complaint, Pantech pleads a domestic industry based, at least in part on the "substantial domestic investments of Pantech's licensees, including without limitation [BLU and LGE]. The district court cases have been assigned to Judge Schroeder. Patton Tidwell & Culbertson, LLP filed them for Pantech, which continues to be represented by Mayer Brown LLP. 7/3, Eastern District of Texas, ITC.
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