Del. Judge Trims BlackBerry's Infringement Suit Against Nokia
A Delaware federal judge has knocked out patent infringement claims against telecommunications giant Nokia Corp. over its alleged use of 11 patents underlying BlackBerry Ltd.'s 3G and 4G communications technology, finding no evidence that the parent company effectively controlled its subsidiaries.
March 21, 2018 at 07:29 PM
3 minute read
A sign stands outside Nokia's headquarters in Espoo, Finland, on Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2016.
A Delaware federal judge has knocked out patent infringement claims against telecommunications giant Nokia Corp. over its alleged use of 11 patents underlying BlackBerry Ltd.'s 3G and 4G communications technology, finding no evidence that the parent company effectively controlled its subsidiaries.
U.S. District Judge Richard G. Andrews of the District of Delaware on Tuesday allowed BlackBerry to proceed with its direct infringement claims against Nokia's American divisions but released the Finnish parent and its other subsidiaries from the 1-year-old suit alleging direct, willful and indirect infringement.
In an eight-page memorandum order, Andrews said BlackBerry, a Canadian corporation specializing in enterprise software and the internet of things, had failed to plead facts that would have justified piercing Nokia's corporate veil.
“Plaintiff's direct infringement claims against NSN Holdings USA and Nokia Corp. appear to be based entirely on these entities' relationships to NSN US,” he said, referencing Nokia Solutions and Networks US.
“The complaint does not state facts supporting the existence of an agency relationship between any of the defendants.”
BlackBerry had sued last February in U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware, alleging that Nokia had infringed its proprietary technology with its networking products. Nokia, BlackBerry said in a 96-page complaint, had been “willfully blind” to its patents, which it obtained years earlier.
Nokia had denied the allegations, saying BlackBerry's suit had no merit.
In court filings, Nokia argued that BlackBerry's complaint had collectively referred to Nokia and its subsidiaries and thus failed to provide adequate notice of each entity's role in the supposed infringement. Like Nokia Corp., Nokia Oy is incorporated in Finland and operated its headquarters overseas.
In his ruling, Andrews said that BlackBerry had made a plausible case for direct infringement against NSN US. But he agreed with Nokia's assessment as to the Finnish companies, noting that a “handful” of BlackBerry's claims charged Nokia Corp. and Nokia Oy with induced and contributory infringement based solely on their parent-subsidiary relationship with NSN US.
“They provide no factual basis to infer that foreign entities Nokia Corp. or NSN Oy knew of the actions of NSN US, and they amount to little more than boilerplate recitations of the elements of induced infringement and contributory infringement claims,” he wrote. “These claims thus fail to meet the plausibility standard.”
The U.S. subsidiary, Andrews said, could only face post-suit claims for willful infringement, because of gaps in the original complaint prevented a finding that it knew about BlackBerry's patents before the case was filed.
Attorneys for both sides were not immediately available to comment.
BlackBerry is represented by Bradley S. Lui, Daniel P. Muino, Hector G. Gallegos, James P. Bennett, Jayson L. Cohen, Michelle Yang and Vincent J. Belusko of Morrison & Foerster and John G. Day and Andrew C. Mayo of Ashby & Geddes.
Nokia and its subsidiaries are represented by Alan S. Kellman, Jonas R. McDavit, Lauren M. Nowierski and Paul A. Bondor of Desmarais and Jack B. Blumenfeld and Jeremy A. Tigan of Morris, Nichols, Arsht & Tunnell.
The case is captioned BlackBerry v. Nokia.
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