Blog 13: Ericsson Oversteps with Samsung

In a growing trend of simplifying patent lawsuits, judge David Shaw denied Ericsson's introduction of 15 new patent claims. Ericsson's lawsuit already has more than 130 claims, and the ITC and Judge Shaw want to decrease the scope of the investigation by narrowing the amount of claims. The fifteen claims were based off of U.S. Reissue Patent No. RE43,931.

The rejection of the motion to introduce new patent allegation is a clear win for Samsung, and this case helps shed more light on the role of the ITC. The ITC did not directly oppose Ericsson's motion to introduce more claims, but claimed that it was concerned that the introduction of this motion would delay the process of the trial and would cause the investigation to balloon out of the tight 15-month schedule set for the case. I think it would be more beneficial for an efficient legal system if the ITC took a more active role in helping resolve legal cases and actively setting precedents for other legal cases to follow. This help to simplify the legal system and might decrease the lag between the resolution of lawsuits and the impact of precedence ramifications.

http://www.fosspatents.com/2013/03/samsung-succeeds-in-blocking-ericssons.html