IPCom, E.Digital, CBS, Apple: Intellectual Property (Update1)

Dec. 11 (Bloomberg) -- IPCom GmbH, a German patent licensing company, said it’s committed to licensing its technology under fair terms in a bid to persuade European Union regulators to dismiss an antitrust complaint filed by Nokia Oyj.

IPCom said in a statement yesterday that it is “fully prepared and ready” to abide by licensing terms for essential mobile-device patents acquired from Robert Bosch GmbH. IPCom in 2007 bought Bosch’s patents that were part of a high-speed mobile communications standard.

IPCom is “prepared to grant irrevocable licenses under the essential intellectual property rights of its Bosch mobile telecommunication patent portfolio,” the company said in a statement on its Web site.

Nokia, the world’s biggest maker of mobile phones, complained to the European Commission in October 2008 that IPCom is undermining patent standard rules by demanding unfair terms for technology used in handheld devices.

The Finnish company wanted the commission, the EU’s antitrust authority in Brussels, to intervene and ensure that companies that acquire patents that are part of a standard abide by the same fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms as the previous owners.

Nokia is embroiled in a long-running dispute with IPCom over patent royalties. Munich-based IPCom is suing Nokia at a court in Mannheim, Germany, alleging that it’s owed about 12 billion euros ($17.7 billion) during the next 20 years for Nokia’s violation of eight patents that were owned by Bosch.

Espoo, Finland-based Nokia said in a statement that it’s “grateful that the European Commission has persuaded IPCom to recognize and confirm its obligations to respect the commitments given by Bosch as the former owner of the patent portfolio.”

The commission welcomed IPCom’s declaration and said in a statement that it’s “important” that companies abide by fair and reasonable and non-discriminatory licensing terms, or FRAND, when patents are transferred.

Cerner Wins Trial Over Philips Visicu Unit’s Patents

Cerner Corp., a provider of medical-record technology, won a jury verdict invalidating patents owned by Royal Philips Electronics NV’s Visicu unit for intensive-care unit monitoring systems.

A federal jury in Kansas City, Missouri, said on Dec. 8 that the patents were invalid and not infringed, and rejected Visicu’s argument that it was entitled to patent royalties.

Kansas City-based Cerner sued Visicu in 2004 to clear its legal right to sell systems and challenge Visicu’s market- leading position. The dispute is over computer systems that use software to analyze patient information, computerize drug ordering and track any change in a patient’s status so doctors can respond even if they aren’t in the room.

“This case was all about who would be able to offer solutions to hospitals and medical centers going forward,” Cerner lawyer B. Trent Webb, of Shook Hardy & Bacon in Kansas City, said in a telephone interview.

Doctors who specialize in intensive-care unit medicine help patients survive the most critical injuries, and the systems let them monitor patients in rural or small hospitals that wouldn’t normally have access to such specialists, Webb said. Of the 60,000 ICU beds in the U.S., less than 10 percent are being monitored through Cerner or Visicu systems, he said.

Visicu is the largest maker of the systems. The only other company in the market, IMDsoft Inc. of Needham, Massachusetts, also is embroiled in a patent dispute with Visicu that is pending in federal court in Pennsylvania.

Amsterdam-based Philips, Europe’s biggest consumer- electronics maker, bought Visicu in 2008 for about $430 million in cash to add to its medical division. The medical-systems unit generated 7.6 billion euros ($11.2 billion) in sales last year.

Officials with Philips Visicu in Baltimore didn’t immediately return messages seeking comment.

The case is Cerner Corp. v. Visicu Inc., 04cv1033, U.S. District Court, Western District of Missouri (Kansas City).

E.Digital Gets First Licensee from Patent-Infringement Case

E.Digital Corp. settled a dispute with Wolverine Data Inc. of Irvine, California, one of the 19 electronics companies E.Digital sued for patent-infringement in November.

E.Digital makes dedicated portable in-flight entertainment systems. Under terms of the agreement, Wolverine will make an undisclosed lump sum payment and pay royalties on sales of its products that use technology covered by San Diego-based E.Digital’s patent 5,491,774,E.Digital said.

That patent, issued in February 1996, is for a handheld recording and playback device with flash memory. Wolverine is the first company from the November suit to take a license on the patent, E.Digital said in a statement.

E.Digital is represented by James Y.C. Sze and Matthew S. Yungwirth of Philadelphia’s Duane Morris LLP, and Natalie Marie Hanlon-Leh of Minneapolis-based Faegre & Benson LLP.

The case is e.Digital Corp. v. Pentax of America Inc., 1:09-cv-02578-MSK-MJW, U.S. District Court, District of Colorado (Denver.