OPENING
STATEMENTS
• ICANN expands its domains
• “Gold-plated” patent finds few takers
• A dangerous hobby?
• Looking for fresh meat
• IP People on the Move
MATT FAULKNER
Crossing the Bridge to Europe
Financed by a U.S. hedge fund and German industrialists, a patent-holding company in Germany targets Nokia. —By Philippa Maister
Could it be that the patent troll,
once believed to survive only
in the concrete jungles, high-tech valleys, and small Texas
towns of North America, has
extended its range to Europe? A case
pending before a German court in
Mannheim could signal its arrival.
The plaintiff is IPCom GmbH & Co.,
of Pullach, Germany. The defendant is
Nokia, the Finnish mobile phone company. IPCom is claiming payments that
could total a whopping € 12 billion for
infringement of its patents on mobile
telecom technology.
IPCom acquired the patents in 2007
from Robert Bosch GmbH, a global
automotive and industrial technology
company that pioneered the technology. The patents fall into 11 groups,
within them 35 “standard and essential
patents” used in most mobile phones,
including SIM cards. IPCom seeks to
enjoin Nokia from using the patents
in Germany.
In an e-mailed statement, Nokia
spokesperson Laurie Armstrong said
Nokia will vigorously defend itself.
“Nokia believes it has good defenses,
the patents in suit being invalid and
not infringed,” Armstrong said. “In
addition, we have our own claims
pending against Bosch. The company
has refused to honor its commitments
to standardization organizations and
Nokia.” Armstrong asserts that IPCom
is “owned by Bosch’s outside counsel.”
The German patent lawyer she is
referring to is IPCom’s managing director, Bernhard Frohwitter. Frohwitter
cofounded Bardehle Pagenberg, one
of Europe’s largest IP law firms, before
going on to launch Munich-based
Frohwitter Intellectual Property Counselors in 1998. He says he did indeed
represent Bosch, helping to assemble the patent portfolio and arrange
licenses. But Frohwitter rejected the
implication that he was part of any
“scheme.”
As he tells it, Bosch decided in 2000
that telephony no longer fit in with
its core business. Frohwitter moved
to buy the patents, partnering with
two companies with deep pockets, the
Schoeller Group of Pullach, a packaging, container and logistics firm dating
from 1600, and, interestingly, Fortress
Investment Group, a big publicly held
New York–based hedge and private
equity fund.
Like many in the IP field, Frohwitter argues about the semantics of
“patent troll,” and angrily denies that
IPCom is one. He describes IPCom
as an “intellectual property asset
manager.” During a ten-year stint in
Houston, Frohwitter says he came
to admire the professional approach
of U.S. firms to exploiting patents as
an asset class, something that did not
exist in Europe, and wanted to copy
this model. “I saw in the U.S. what a
patent troll is—a kind of blackmailer.
That is not our business. IPCom is
not a litigating firm. We like amicable
settlements. The standard is what is
fair and reasonable, no more and no
