Judge Lucy Koh

When it comes to FRAND and antitrust, Nokia wants to put as much distance as possible between itself and U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh.

And really, can you blame them? Koh just handed Nokia the award for Best Supporting Monopolist in the FTC v. Qualcomm bench trial. In her findings of fact last month, the judge found that a Nokia executive was “not credible” about the company's licensing practices and “conveniently claimed complete ignorance”about specific Nokia licenses. She concluded that Nokia was “following Qualcomm's lead” in licensing only at the OEM level.

So when parts supplier Continental Automotive Systems sued Nokia and others in the Northern District of California last month, accusing them of refusing to license their 2G, 3G and 4G SEPs to auto parts suppliers at the supplier level, you can bet there's one judge especially that Nokia really, really did not want to appear in front of.

And guess who Continental v. Avanci just got assigned to? (Here's a musical hint.)

Continental, which splashed Koh's FTC opinion all over its May 10 complaint, had naturally requested assignment to the San Jose Division. The case was assigned to U.S. Magistrate Judge Nathanael Cousins.

Nokia literally didn't want to be in the same courthouse at Judge Koh. The company formally declined assignment to a magistrate judge on Friday, and along with co-defendants Avanci and Conversant Wireless moved for district-wide reassignment. “Plaintiff pleads antitrust claims in this case, and the Local Rules exclude cases involving antitrust claims from the division-specific venue rule,” attorneys for the companies wrote.

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But you know the old saying about striking at the king? Nokia swung but missed. Before bowing out of the case, Cousins rejected the transfer request. He reasoned that Continental's complaint includes claims for breach of the FRAND contractual obligation as well as antitrust. “The Clerk of Court therefore was correct to assign this case to the San Jose division,” Cousins concluded.

Whereupon Cousins stepped aside, the three-judge San Jose wheel was spun, and the case landed before … U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh.

She's gotten right to work. Earlier today Koh denied Nokia's request to extend the deadline for responding to Continental's motion for an anti-suit injunction to September 6. “The Court concludes that Nokia Defendants have not convincingly demonstrated why they need two and a half months to respond to Plaintiff's motion,” she wrote, though she did give them a one-month extension, till July 24.

In the meantime, Nokia surely isn't done plotting its escape. Nokia's Alston & Bird counsel Ryan Koppelman has stated repeatedly in his papers that Nokia is not conceding that it was properly served in the Northern District, and that it reserves the right to challenge jurisdiction and venue at a later date.