On Friday it was announced that Ford vehicles may not be sold in Germany for the time being. It’s about patent rights.
This was announced on Friday District Court of Munich a temporary ban on sales of Ford models infringing the wireless transmission patent. The verdict is not yet final, but it is setting ford negative pressure. Eight lawsuits are pending, one of which has now been upheld by the Munich District Court: that of the Japanese patent rights administrator IP Bridge.
Specifically, it is about mobile phone patents (LTE) and chips that are operated without license fees. IP Bridge has to deposit 227 million euros to enforce the judgment. These communication technologies are used in vehicle navigation systems, vehicle communications, and autonomous vehicles to allow data to be transmitted.
It’s not the first case of this kind, it’s happened before in the networking space patent litigation. Finally, the manufacturers demanded as part of the FRAND agreement more favorable conditions. But Mercedes already lost in this area against Nokia in court. 48 companies hold around 70 percent of the standard patents and more and more vehicles are being equipped with more and more networking technology.