u-blox AG et al v. Koninklijke KPN N.V. DC

u-blox has filed a declaratory judgment action in the Southern District of California against Koninklijke KPN N.V. (3:21-cv-01220), a telecommunications provider based in the Netherlands, asserting various claims related to KPN’s alleged failure to license its standard essential patents related to 2G, 3G, and 4G cellular technology on fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms. In January of this year, KPN fired off a round of new suits—against u-blox, as well as against Acer, BLU Products, Bullitt Group, Xiaomi, and Yulong Computer Telecommunications Scientific Company (Coolpad Technologies)—in the District of Delaware, where recent dismissals have left only a case between KPN and HTC still headed toward trial there.

Dutch telecom provider Koninklijke KPN N.V. has expanded the wireless communications campaign that it began over six years ago, filing new suits against Acer (1:21-cv-00045), BLU Products (1:21-cv-00042), Bullitt Group (1:21-cv-00044), u-blox (1:21-cv-00046), Xiaomi (1:21-cv-00041), and Yulong Computer Telecommunications Scientific Company (Coolpad Technologies) (1:21-cv-00043) in the District of Delaware. The cases follow in the long wake of prior Delaware suits before District Judge Leonard P. Stark, with the parties there, including defendants HTC, LG Electronics (LGE), and Sierra Wireless, requesting this past week that deadlines for dispositive motions be pushed out, a few weeks closer to a first trial—one that, at least for now, would remain scheduled to begin on April 12, 2021. The six complaints focus on battle-tested claims of a patent that met an early Alice demise in the litigation, only to be resurrected by the Federal Circuit in November 2019.