Recently, Pantech, a South Korean manufacturer that has been transformed from a mobile phone manufacturer to a non-implementing entity (NPE), filed a lawsuit against OnePlus in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, accusing OnePlus of infringing eight of its LTE and 5G-related standard essential patents.
According to court documents, as early as 2020, in accordance with the policy requirements of the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), Pantech approached OnePlus on a fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory basis, and repeatedly proposed patent licenses to OnePlus and provided technical details about the patents. However, OnePlus did not respond to its proposal in good faith, "but instead adopted a delaying strategy". Pantech has determined that a number of OnePlus' smartphones, including the well-known OnePlus series, Nord series, and other devices involving LTE and 5G, infringe its patent rights.
So far, Pan Thai and OnePlus have not publicly responded to the lawsuit.
It is reported that Pantech was founded in 1991 and is the third largest mobile phone manufacturer in South Korea after Samsung and LG. At present, Pantech's smartphone business has been discontinued, but Pantech still holds a large number of important patent resources. The patent lawsuit against OnePlus Technology has inevitably caused the industry to pay attention to whether the large number of patents accumulated by mobile phone manufacturers that have withdrawn from the mobile terminal business after multiple rounds of market reshuffle, such as LG, which is larger than Pantech, will affect existing terminal manufacturers in the future. Pantech is also currently engaged in two legal battles with LG Electronics.
As early as June 2022, Pantech and Pantech Wireless sued OnePlus for infringement of several of its patents in the Eastern District Court of Texas, and the preliminary results of the lawsuit were made last Friday, with a jury finding that OnePlus infringed five of Panty's patents and should pay $10.3 million in damages.
来源：集微网、Lexology
Editor: Sharon