Dutch court dismisses Nokia claim against Qualcomm

Qualcomm Inc. announced the dismissal of Nokia Corp.’s complaint in District Court in The Hague against the chip and licensing company over patent exhaustion.
Nokia had complained in March that Qualcomm’s European patents were “exhausted” with respect to chips sold on the European market by Texas Instruments Inc., in light of an agreement between Qualcomm and TI made in 2000.
The Dutch court, according to Qualcomm, ruled that its jurisdiction covered only The Netherlands and that Nokia’s complaint was too vague and lacked specific examples of the exhaustion principle in Nokia’s handsets.
Nokia, in turn, said that the Dutch court ruled based on the scope of relief Nokia requested, rather than on the principle of patent exhaustion at the heart of the case. Nokia is considering whether to appeal the ruling, according to a company spokesperson. Nokia has three months to appeal.
“We are particularly gratified that this ruling highlights that one should view Nokia’s fundamental theory of exhaustion with a significant degree of skepticism,” said Don Rosenberg, Qualcomm’s general counsel. “It is obvious that Nokia was trying to weaken Qualcomm’s position in our licensing negotiations and they failed.”
“The court ruling was based on the scope of relief Nokia requested, rather than the principle of patent exhaustion in the case,” said Laurie Armstrong, a Nokia spokesperson. “In our complaint, we sought a declaration from the court that Qualcomm would be prevented in Europe from enforcing patents that have already been licensed by Texas Instruments and incorporated into TI chipsets used in Nokia handsets. The issue of exhaustion of patent rights in the wireless communications industry is becoming increasingly important. We remain confident that our substantive claim is well founded and we are considering if we will appeal the decision.”
A similar case was dismissed Oct. 23 by the Regional Court of Mannheim, Germany, for “lack of admissibility”-that Nokia essentially lacked a “legal interest” in pursing an exhaustion claim.