Not so in Germany where a patent infringement case is resolved based on the parties' pleadings and representations.Įricsson's lead counsel in this case, Kather Augenstein co-founder Dr. patent case, that wouldn't matter: there would be third-party discovery, and WhatsApp (a Meta/Facebook subsidiary) would have to provide documents, answer written questions, and provide witnesses. But that doesn't make Ericsson's litigation strategy any less helpful to the app developer community.Īpple's marketing claim that all App Store apps are secure because of Apple's manual app review plays a role here only because Apple denies knowledge of WhatsApp's internal communications protocols.
Obviously, Ericsson just wants to win its case in order to reach an agreement with Apple on a renewed license agreement the Swedish company isn't pursuing the agenda of App Store complainants like Epic Games. Georg Werner) agrees with the plaintiff's-not Apple's-claim construction and Apple so far doesn't seem to be able to deny the infringement contentions with sufficient specificity.Īs an app developer who frequently criticizes Apple's App Store monopoly and especially the app review tyranny at the heart of it, I really loved to see Apple's security pretext-which comes up in all litigations, regulatory processes, and political debates over the App Store monopoly-being debunked by Ericsson in open court. The hearing went pretty well for Ericsson as the court's 21st Civil Chamber (Presiding Judge: Dr.
Ericsson is seeking an injunction, and if it succeeded (as it very well might), Apple would be precluded from providing WhatsApp (and potentially other apps with similar technical characteristics) to its German users. The accused technology is not the iPhone per se, but an iPhone running the iOS version of WhatsApp. The patent-in-suit is EP2220848 on "mobile access to internet-based application with reduced polling" (a non-standard-essential patent). Apple case to be heard by a German court as part of the current dispute. This morning, the Munich I Regional Court held a first hearing (a prelude to a trial that has been scheduled for April 19, 2023) in the first Ericsson v.
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