2015年12月4日 星期五

華為、三星侵害愛立信LTE基礎專利討論

Ericsson(愛立信)公司積極讓手中握有的專利尋求授權的機會,主要還是透過專利訴訟達成,可參考過去報導:愛立信尋求授權合約:http://enpan.blogspot.tw/2015/01/blog-post_26.html

此次由Unwired Planet出手,由Ericsson手中取得專利,在英國對眾多手機業者提出告訴,包括華為、三星、Google等,Unwired Planet是個NPE,媒體的介紹:"Unwired Planet, Inc. (NASDAQ:UPIP) is the inventor of the Mobile Internet and a premier intellectual property company focused exclusively on the mobile industry."。

根據英國高等法院判定專利有效,而且侵權成立,其中系爭專利如EP (UK) 2 229 744,有關LTE的標準專利(SEP),應該就是被告等人不願意接受授權合約。

主張系爭專利為必要與標準專利,因此被告Huawei與Samsung理應侵權,另Google則已經和解:
"Unwired Planet contends that the patent is essential to the standard and, therefore, Huawei and Samsung’s compliance with the standard means they infringe."

EP (UK) 2 229 744
名稱很有自信地命名為無線通訊網路方法與安排(method and arrangement in a wireless communication network),設有第一節點與第二節點同時在無線通訊網路中,第一節點請求第二節點的狀態報告(status report),此狀態報告包括第二節點是否得到第一節點傳送資料的結果,第一節點包括有第一計數器,用以技術傳送的協議資料單元的數量,另有計算傳送資料位元數量的第二計數器,運作時,先初始化(歸零)第一與第二計數器,再開始傳送資料到第二節點,並比對各計數值是否達到設定的門檻,達到時第一節點即可得到狀態報告。

講完了,表示這個範圍很廣,就是兩個節點之間的狀態協議,兩個節點的polling,這對網路是否穩定很重要,也是行動通訊的基礎。

Claim 1:
Method in a first node (110) for requesting a status report from a second node (120), the first node (110) and the second node (120) both being comprised within a wireless communication network (100), the status report comprising positive and/or negative acknowledgement of data sent from the first node (110) to be received by the second node (120), wherein the method comprises the steps of:
transmitting (306) a sequence of data units or data unit segments to be received by the second node (120), the method further comprises the steps of:
counting (307) the number of transmitted data units and the number of transmitted data bytes of the transmitted data units, and
requesting (310) a status report from the second node (120) if the counted number of transmitted data units exceeds or equals a first predefined value, or the counted number of transmitted data bytes of the transmitted data units exceeds or equals a second predefined value.

UMTS與LTE再傳遞訊息中,其中的SDU(service data unit)與PDU(protocol data unit)有不同的設定,如RLC PDU封包大小,因此也面對了不同的問題。LTE的設計顯然是採取非固定大小的傳送模式,於是面對的記憶體設定就無法事先得知。系爭專利即針對此問題提出事先取得狀態報告的解決方案。


系爭專利:

法官即依照通訊協定所遇到的問題,以及系爭專利如何對應此解決方案解釋專利範圍,分析後發現,相關領域技術人員若要解決通訊的問題,都需要系爭專利所提到的技術("I find that the skilled person thought it was better to set the poll upon assembly because that means it was being set when it was needed.")

"The status reports produced by the second node when polled comprise both ACK and NACK fields and satisfy the requirement for positive and/or negative acknowledgement in claim 1. The transmission of RLC data PDUs which are either AMD PDUs or AMD PDU segments satisfies the requirement for the transmission of data units or data unit segments."

當面對必要且標準的專利訴訟時,此篇判決成為一個可以參考的範本,就是討論技術本身,討論解決特定問題是否就僅能靠系爭專利的技術,若是,這就是必要專利,這非得侵權不可。

對於claim 1,Claim 1滿足在無須重新傳遞資料的要求下需要事先得知節點之間資訊的技術要求。
"In accordance with this standard the RLC in the transmitter will count both PDUs and bytes. The bytes counted are payload bytes. The count is of transmissions rather than retransmissions. The counting and the setting of the poll bit occurs during assembly of the PDU, so that the poll bit is set in the header of the PDU which triggered either count reaching the relevant threshold. Thus claim 1 is satisfied."

對於claim 9,Claim 9滿足在計數達到門檻後需要重置的技術要求。
"When either the PDU counter or the byte counter reaches the appropriate threshold a poll is triggered and both counters are reset. Thus claim 9 is satisfied. The fact that the counters are also reset in other circumstances does not mean claim 9 is avoided."

判決書前後,包括結論都提到此篇專利所涉及LTE的標準,除了新穎性、進步性、優先權等法律議題外(這跟LTE何時發展有關,包括各行動廠商的開發技術),其餘判決文一半的篇幅都在討論通訊技術,以及系爭專利如何解決到了LTE時遇到的問題,有興趣的人都可參考。
"The patent is valid and is infringed by wireless telecommunication networks which operate in accordance with the relevant LTE standard. Thus patent EP (UK) 2 229 744 is essential to standard 3GPP TS 36.322 release 8 version 8.8.0."


剩下就是如何用FRAND原則進行授權與損害賠償了。

從Unwired Planet網站得到的判決書:
http://www.unwiredplanet.com/storage/litigation/uk/Unwired%20Planet%20-%20APPROVED%20judgment%2023%2011%2015.pdf
(備份:https://app.box.com/s/9mk40reh12qizskum1tni2bocsp5tp2n

資料參考:http://www.fosspatents.com/2015/11/privateering-uk-court-holds-ericsson.html

Ron

沒有留言: