Ford threatens sales ban in Germany

In dispute over licenses for an LTE patent, Ford suffered a bitter defeat in court docket. Accordingly, a Germany-wide ban on the sale and manufacturing of sure fashions shall be imposed on the American carmaker. The ban solely applies to sure automobiles which are geared up with LTE – and for which Ford doesn’t pay any license charges. Ford was sued by a complete of eight holders of patents from the cell sector, that are important for 4G. This was first reported by the “Wirtschaftswoche”. Accordingly, it’s the first verdict towards a automobile firm because the patent legislation reform got here into power final summer time.

To ensure that the judgment to be enforced, a safety deposit of 227 million euros should be deposited by the Japanese plaintiff IP Bridge. Then it will be enforced in per week or two – except Ford involves an settlement with the plaintiffs. Additionally, the decision just isn’t but closing, Ford can nonetheless attraction. Whether it is enforced, there’s even a danger that every one automobiles shall be recalled and destroyed. Final yr Ford bought virtually 130,000 automobiles and recorded sales in the thousands and thousands.

Not solely Ford threatens hardship

However Ford is not the one firm going through bother. There’s a complete vary of so-called “related automobile processes”. Homeowners of cell phone patents are taking motion towards numerous automobile producers in these lawsuits. They need the automobile producers to pay license charges for utilizing the assorted cellphone applied sciences. As a result of many chips should now be put in in each automobile because of e-calls, a know-how for automated emergency calls. However automobile producers are additionally more and more utilizing the chips for leisure and navigation features.

Daimler threatened to close down its manufacturing in 2020, there have been 4 prohibition choices. Volkswagen was additionally sued, however purchased the corresponding patents earlier than a court docket resolution. The American producer GM even purchased the corresponding patents with none stress.

Ford introduced that the rationale for this lawsuit was the licensing of standard-essential patents for LTE networks. “Since we don’t but have the written reasoning for the judgment, we don’t wish to touch upon it at the moment,” the corporate mentioned in a press release.