Samsung wins interim licence in UK patent fight with ZTE
LONDON (Reuters) -Samsung Electronics on Wednesday won a ruling from London's High Court in its attempt to get an interim licence to use ZTE's patents, in the English leg of the firms' global licensing dispute over mobile phone patents.
English courts have recently permitted parties to pursue short-term patent licences pending trial, including in Amazon's dispute with Nokia and Lenovo's battle with Ericsson, before both ultimately settled.
Wednesday's ruling, though, is the first time in England that a court of first instance - the initial court where a case is heard - has made such an interim licence declaration.
Disputes over the fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms of a patent licence have frequently led to global legal battles in the telecom industry.
English courts can set global FRAND terms, following a landmark 2020 UK Supreme Court ruling, as can courts in China.
Samsung sued ZTE in London in December 2024 seeking a determination of FRAND terms, with ZTE bringing parallel lawsuits against Samsung in China, Germany and Brazil.
In London, Samsung sought a declaration that a willing licensor in ZTE's position would agree to an interim licence until FRAND terms were decided by the court.
Both Samsung and ZTE had made competing offers for an interim licence, with ZTE's licence requiring FRAND terms to be those determined by a court in China.
London's High Court ruled in Samsung's favour on Wednesday, with Judge James Mellor saying that "ZTE have acted in bad faith with their wave of unnecessary injunctive proceedings".
The judge added that "ZTE's terms are designed to render this action (in London) pointless, so that Samsung effectively has to abandon it" in favour of accepting the outcome of ZTE's lawsuit in Chongqing in southwestern China.
Samsung and ZTE did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Tom's Guide
3 hours ago
- Tom's Guide
Panasonic's 2025 TVs are getting one of the neatest new features — LG and Samsung should copy it
Panasonic is a true innovator for displays and it's once more thinking outside of the box for its 2025 TV lineup. Last year, it brought some incredible enhancements to TV audio, and this year, it's re-thinking how your TV will talk to your PC. With some help of CEC (Consumer Electronics Control), the Panasonic Z95B OLED will turn on when your laptop turns on, or turn off automatically once you shut it down. That's not typically the case for most monitors, which will simply just turn off after a long period of time when there's no signal available to the display port connection. And while you could get some CEC-like functionality for PCs used with a TV before now, it was complicated to set up. But Panasonic has figured out a bi-directional solution using regular cables. Probably without knowing it, CEC is a feature that you use several times a day. Whenever you turn on a gaming console and it also turns on your TV, or even control volume levels with a streaming stick — that's the magic of CEC. Before now, a unified control scheme often required special CEC dongles or even finnicky GitHub procedures to make it all work smoothly. But its applications to PCs have been limited. Before now, a unified control scheme often required special CEC dongles or even finnicky GitHub procedures to make it all work smoothly. Suffice it to say, these are major deal breakers for most users. While using a PC with a TV might be niche, Panasonic's new CEC solution makes controlling the two even easier and streamlines that connective tissue between both devices. If you're someone who hasn't thought about using a TV as a monitor, you're missing out. TVs have started to take up even loftier refresh rates in an effort to boost their appeal. LG and Samsung are fighting for dominance among the best gaming TVs with the LG G5 OLED and Samsung S95F OLED, which both come equipped with a 165Hz refresh rate — a rare first for TVs. Hisense has also added 165Hz to its entire 2025 TV lineup, minus its cheapest U6QG Mini-LED TV. What's even more interesting is that Hisense kitted its U8QG and U9QG models with a USB-C input for charging and video passthrough, proving just how committed Panasonic is to making the PC experience better on its TVs. Some makers are even playing with dynamic refresh rates in different resolutions. Samsung's QN990F 8K TV is a first adopter, letting you game at 4K resolution up to 240Hz with its Motion Xcelerator feature. Of course, you'll need a pretty powerful PC for this, but at least TCL's got you covered with similar technology at lower refresh rates. PC gaming is inarguably the most popular use case for connecting a PC to a TV, and one of the main reasons why I replaced my PC monitor with an LG C4 OLED last year. One of the biggest complaints I had was the very same power delivery concerns that Panasonic is aiming to fix on its new sets. If it works as intended, this improved CEC functionality could give Panasonic TVs an edge against the competition when used alongside a variety of different devices, including laptops, tower PCs, and Mini PCs. I personally use my Mini PC with a TV all the time, as it allows me to write, watch movies and shows, edit videos, and (the best part) play video games from the comfort of my couch. Once Panasonic's 2025 models hit shelves, I won't have to fumble for the remote when they're booting their PC up or shutting the TV off when they're done. It's all baked into the experience and totally streamlined. Samsung and LG, if you're reading this, I hope next year's models will all have something similar baked into them.
Gizmodo
6 hours ago
- Gizmodo
Due to a Price Agreement with Samsung, Amazon Can't Publicly Show the Huge Galaxy S25+ Discount
Amazon typically has deals with major brands such that they do not destroy the luxury brand image by offering massive discounts. That means technically, you can have a 'hidden price' on the product page and you will only see the real discount if you add the product to your cart. This is exactly the situation with the Galaxy S25+, the clear best-seller among the S25 series. The Galaxy S25+ has come out earlier this year and is now at a record-low price, way below that on Samsung's own website. Currently, the Galaxy S25+ 512GB is available on Amazon for $919 which is a substantial reduction from its original $1,119 price. See at Amazon At the heart of the Galaxy S25+ is a Qualcomm Snapdragon very premium processor running at 4.47 GHz, paired with 12GB of RAM. This combination delivers lightning-fast performance. The 512GB of internal storage gives you plenty of room for documents so you'll never have to worry about not having enough space. The 6.7-inch AMOLED ProScaler display is a treat for the eyes, and offers rich colorful shades, deep blacks, and sharp details. Galaxy S25+ runs on the latest One UI 7 which is based on Android 15 so you'll enjoy the latest features, security patches, and a snappy user interface. The phone is carrier-unlocked for all carriers, so you can use it with any of the leading carriers in the US. Its 5G capability means you'll enjoy ultra-fast download and upload speeds, perfect for streaming, video calls, and online gaming. Battery life is another strong point with the Galaxy S25+ easily lasting way more than a full day on a single charge, even with heavy use. You will also be impressed by its AI-powered camera system: The Audio Eraser AI Camera lets you capture rich low-light videos and minimize unwanted noise so you can relive your best moments less interrupted. Upgraded portrait features control skin tones and preserve natural textures to give each shot a sophisticated, professional look. The in-phone AI assistant can perform several tasks simultaneously, freeing you up during your day and making it easier to stay organized. The Galaxy S25+ also includes Now Brief, a smart assistant that provides you with the information you need before you even realize that you do. This puts you ahead of the game. The phone's powerful processor makes it possible for you to translate calls, slow down video, or edit pictures without losing a beat, so you can do it both for work and play. Don't lose out on this exclusive chance to upgrade to one of the best phones of 2025 at a price that's just irresistible. See at Amazon
Yahoo
8 hours ago
- Yahoo
AI-powered chat summaries are coming to WhatsApp
Meta is adding a new Message Summaries feature to WhatsApp that uses AI to summarize unread messages in a few bullet points. The feature is built on the Private Processing technique Meta announced at Llamacon in April, and claims to let AI work with content in WhatsApp without exposing any of it to Meta itself. Once the feature appears in your app, you just tap on the onscreen banner over your unread messages with that says "Summarize privately" to receive a summary from Meta AI. The Message Summaries feature is rolling out to WhatsApp users in the US chatting in English first, but Meta says it hopes to "bring it to other languages and countries later this year." The company pitches summaries as an easier way to catch-up on what you missed if you haven't checked your phone or you're just in too many chats. AI is by no means foolproof at even simple tasks like this — Apple's trouble with notification summaries was only a few months ago — but the tool could be appealing to people in particularly large and active chats. The real novelty of the summaries is how Meta claims to be deploying them without walking back the private nature of WhatsApp chats. The company has a blog post and whitepaper digging into the details of how Private Processing works, but on first blush it sounds similar to Private Cloud Compute, the method Apple uses to call on more demanding AI features without exposing its users' data. Using end-to-end encryption and a secure cloud environment, WhatsApp messages can be processed without data being accessed while its happening, or saved after the fact. Importantly, all of this is still optional. Summaries won't be provided without you asking for them first, and the feature is disabled by default. Meta also says you can exclude chats from being shared with the company's AI via the Advanced Chat Privacy feature.
