核心提示:原標(biāo)題:關(guān)于德國(guó)聯(lián)邦法院近期對(duì)Sisvel vs. 海爾案判決的最新評(píng)論德國(guó)聯(lián)邦法院(該國(guó)最高法院)在Sisvel訴海爾(Haier)案中下達(dá)了裁決,這
原標(biāo)題:關(guān)于德國(guó)聯(lián)邦法院近期對(duì)Sisvel vs. 海爾案判決的最新評(píng)論
德國(guó)聯(lián)邦法院(該國(guó)最高法院)在Sisvel訴海爾(Haier)案中下達(dá)了裁決,這是自2015年歐盟法院做出具有里程碑意義的華為(HUAWEI)v. 中興(ZTE) 判決以來(lái)所審理的首個(gè)FRAND相關(guān)案件。該決定為許多長(zhǎng)期爭(zhēng)論的有關(guān)標(biāo)準(zhǔn)基本專(zhuān)利技術(shù)許可談判的問(wèn)題提供了明確的指導(dǎo)。
德國(guó)聯(lián)邦法院(FCJ)近期剛剛發(fā)布了期待已久的對(duì)于Sisvel vs. Haier一案的判決。這是歐洲法院對(duì)華為 vs. 中興一案做出裁決后歐洲的首個(gè)最高法院判決。華為 vs. 中興一案的判決中,歐洲法院針對(duì)標(biāo)準(zhǔn)必要專(zhuān)利(SEP)侵權(quán)行為所致禁令的執(zhí)行建立了一個(gè)嚴(yán)格的多步驟行為機(jī)制(又被稱(chēng)為the Huawei Dance)。
The German Federal Court of Justice (FCJ) has now published its long-awaited decision in the Sisvel vs. Haier case. This is the first supreme court decision after the ECJ's ruling in the Huawei vs. ZTE case, which established a strict multi-step behavioural regime (the Huawei Dance) for the enforcement of the injunction based on the infringement of an SEP.
The patent in suit is a German part of a European Patent 852 885 which was granted in 2005 and subsequently validated in Germany. This EP patent resulted from a regional entry of a PCT application PCT/FI1996/000506 claiming priority from a Finnish application filed on September 25, 1995. This PCT application was filed on September 25, 1996. From the PATENTSCOPE registry, this PCT application later had entered China, European Patent Office, New Zealand, Canada, Japan, Norway and the USA.
The original applicant of the PCT application PCT/FI1996/000506 including the Finnish priority application is Nokia Telecommunications OY (Finland). SISVEL International S.A. registered its ownership of the German part of the granted EP patent 852 885 on August 8, 2012 and acted as the proprietor until the patent term was expired on September 25, 2016.
The mentioned of the grant for European Patent 852 885 was published in the European Patent Bulletin 16.11.2005, after 7 years of prosecution in the EPO. No third-party observation was filed in the EPO during the prosecution history. The 9-month opposition period for this patent ends at 16.08.2006 on which a notice of Opposition was filed to against this granted EP patent. The opponent was QUALCOMM INCORPORATED. QUALCOMM withdrawn their opposition by a letter of 07.10.2008. A decision to discontinue the opposition proceedings on Nov. 21, 2008 was released by the EPO.
Previously, a nullity action was taken to the German part of EP852 885 just before the patent term was going to expire. The German Federal Supreme Court (BGH) confirmed the validity of EP852885 on March 10, 2020 and subsequently BGH has also confirmed another patent EP 1 264 504 from Sisvel to be valid.
關(guān)于此案判決和其主要考慮因素 / about the decision and the main considerations
正如預(yù)料當(dāng)中的那樣,F(xiàn)CJ提出的理由給專(zhuān)利實(shí)施者帶來(lái)了更大的負(fù)擔(dān)。它強(qiáng)調(diào)了實(shí)施者有義務(wù)參與并推進(jìn)許可談判,并表明其真實(shí)有意愿接受FRAND許可——“無(wú)論什么條件下的FRAND”。在這方面,F(xiàn)CJ明確提及了英國(guó)判例法(英國(guó)高等法院,Birss法官,[2017]EWHC 711(pat),Unwired Planet vs. Huawei,mn. 708)中使用過(guò)的“無(wú)論什么條件下的FRAND”(“on whatever terms are FRAND”)的語(yǔ)言。
As expected the reasoning of the FCJ places a higher burden on the implementer and emphasises the implementer’s duty to advance the license negotiations and show its true willingness to take a FRAND-license, “on whatever terms are in fact FRAND”. In this regard the FCJ explicitly refers to the UK case law (UK High Court of Justice, Judge Birss, [2017] EWHC 711 (pat), Unwired Planet vs. Huawei, mn. 708) which coined the “on whatever terms are FRAND” language.
然而,F(xiàn)CJ在判決中使用歐盟法院對(duì)于華為 vs. 中興一案的案例法,并不像人們可能擔(dān)心的那樣(基于口頭聽(tīng)證會(huì)和聽(tīng)證會(huì)后對(duì)于德國(guó)專(zhuān)利訴訟趨勢(shì)的傳言),對(duì)專(zhuān)利實(shí)施者那么的不利。相反,針對(duì)專(zhuān)利權(quán)人和實(shí)施者在評(píng)估許可條件是否FRAND時(shí)雙方之間存在的信息不對(duì)稱(chēng)這一問(wèn)題,F(xiàn)CJ還提出了一些關(guān)于專(zhuān)利權(quán)人的基本義務(wù)的積極陳述。
However, the FCJ’s adoption of the Huawei vs. ZTE case law by the CJEU is not as negative for implementers as one might have feared based on the oral hearing and the rumours purported in the German patent litigation scene right after the hearing. Rather, the FCJ’s reasoning also contains some positive statements on the basic obligations the patent proprietor has in view of the asymmetry of information between the patent proprietor and the implementer when assessing the FRANDness of the offer.
I. FCJ’s basic considerations /德國(guó)聯(lián)邦法院的基本考慮
FCJ對(duì)FRAND抗辯的解釋?zhuān)吔谒^橙皮書(shū)一案所建立的針對(duì)反壟斷法下對(duì)于強(qiáng)制許可的異議的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)框架的“嚴(yán)格版本”(橙皮書(shū)標(biāo)準(zhǔn)判決是FCJ在歐盟法院的華為 vs. 中興案之前作出過(guò)的一項(xiàng)具有標(biāo)志性意義的裁決):
The FCJ interprets the FRAND defence closer to the stricter so-called Orange-Book-Standard framework for antitrust law driven compulsory license objections (the Orange-Book-Standard decision is the FCJ’s landmark decision prior to the Huawei vs. ZTE case law by the CJEU):
首先,F(xiàn)CJ重申,正如歐盟法院在華為 vs. 中興案中所述,以涉嫌侵犯標(biāo)準(zhǔn)必要專(zhuān)利為由提出禁令救濟(jì)、召回和銷(xiāo)毀的要求,本身并不違反反壟斷法。這是因?yàn)?,具有市?chǎng)主導(dǎo)地位的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)必要專(zhuān)利所有者不會(huì)要求實(shí)施者簽訂許可協(xié)議,也無(wú)法強(qiáng)制實(shí)施者獲得許可。相反,實(shí)施者應(yīng)當(dāng)提出要約以獲取FRAND許可。因此,根據(jù)先前BGH的判決(mn. 70),對(duì)于那些使用專(zhuān)利并不愿意獲取許可的侵權(quán)者,專(zhuān)利權(quán)人有權(quán)依據(jù)專(zhuān)利侵權(quán)行為提出包括禁令救濟(jì)的主張。
As a starting point, the FCJ reiterates, that it is not per se a violation of antitrust law to claim injunctive relief, recall and destruction based on alleged infringement of an SEP just like the CJEU had stated in Huawei vs. ZTE. That is because, the market-dominant SEP owner would not have a claim against an implementer to conclude a license agreement and would not be able to force an implementer to take a license. The implementer, however, would have such a claim to obtain a FRAND-license. Therefore, the patentee would be left with asserting his claims based on patent infringement (i.e. also the claim for injunctive relief) against those parties who use the patent but are not willing to conclude a license according to the BGH (mn. 70).
(1) … if the license seeker provides an unconditional offer, that the patentee must not decline without infringing the prohibition of abuse or discrimination (no. 71 which is the old Orange-Book standard) or,
(2) … if the patentee has not taken the necessary steps to conclude a license agreement with a standard user that has proven to be willing to conclude such a license agreement at reasonable terms (nm. 72).
II. Implementer’s willingness to license / 專(zhuān)利實(shí)施者接受許可的意愿
FCJ在這一方面表示,在華為 vs. 中興一案的框架內(nèi),許可尋求者需要清晰、明確地表明其愿意以FRAND作為基礎(chǔ)與標(biāo)準(zhǔn)必要專(zhuān)利所有人達(dá)成許可協(xié)議。因?yàn)?ldquo;一個(gè)愿意接受許可的被許可人必須是在任何條款下均愿意獲取FRAND許可的,只要該條款事實(shí)上是FRAND的。(“a willing licensee must be one willing to take a FRAND license on whatever terms are in fact FRAND.”)
From that second category the FCJ follows that within the Huawei vs. ZTE framework, the license seeker would need to clearly and unambiguously show its willingness to conclude a license with the SEP-holder at FRAND-terms. Because “a willing licensee must be one willing to take a FRAND licence on whatever terms are in fact FRAND.”
FCJ的這些考慮使其與杜塞爾多夫法院對(duì)華為 vs. 中興案例法的采用產(chǎn)生了實(shí)質(zhì)性的偏差。杜塞爾多夫法院認(rèn)為,依據(jù)歐盟法院華為 vs. 中興一案的案例法,雙方達(dá)成許可的必要步驟是連續(xù)性的并由相互替換的職責(zé)構(gòu)成。只有在另一方完全履行了其先前義務(wù)的情況下,才會(huì)產(chǎn)生下一步的交替性的職責(zé)。曼海姆法院和最近慕尼黑法院(在其指導(dǎo)方針中)對(duì)FRAND抗辯也偏離了歐盟法院在華為訴中興一案的判決中所要求嚴(yán)格遵循的一系列步驟。
The FCJ’s basic considerations lead to a substantial deviation from the Dusseldorf court’s adoption of the Huawei vs. ZTE case law. The Dusseldorf courts considered the necessary steps under Huawei vs. ZTE CJEU case law as consecutive and mutual sequence of duties which only arise if the respective preceding obligation is completely fulfilled by the other party. The Mannheim and recently the Munich court (in its guidelines) already appeared shifting away from assessing the FRAND defence in view of adherence to the strict sequence of the steps required under CJEU’s Huawei vs. ZTE decision.
The key takeaway for any license seeker here is that any response to inquiries from SEP-owners should be clear and unambiguous. It should not be placed under any conditions and it must convey the clear message that the license seeker would be willing to take a FRAND-licences, whatever the FRAND-terms for the respective portfolio in the given case would be.
III. SEP-owners obligation to provide information on its licensing practice / SEP所有者有義務(wù)提供其許可實(shí)踐的有關(guān)信息
The FCJ emphasizes that the SEP-owner “may be required to provide a detailed justification for its license claims in order to enable the person willing to take a license to verify whether the license claim constitutes an abuse of a dominant position”, i.e. whether the terms and conditions offered are in fact FRAND. For otherwise, ‘the company willing to take a license would be forced to either take the risk of being ordered to cease and desist in the patent proprietor's infringement action, or to accept a potentially abusively excessive claim to license fees or other potentially abusive contractual conditions, in order to safely exclude the risk of an injunction’ (mn. 76).
The scope of the obligation and what is exactly needed to fulfil the patent proprietor’s duty to fulfil its information obligation has not been addressed further by the FCJ. The FCJ here merely refers to the specific circumstances of the case and (what is somehow new) the response of the infringer (mn. 79).
IV. FRAND-terms and the non-discrimination prong of FRAND / FRAND條款和FRAND非歧視性的探討
The FCJ takes the position that there would not only be one set of FRAND-terms. In particular the SEP-owner would not be required to grant equal conditions to all standard users. Rather the SEP-owner must only grant such terms and conditions that do not distort competition between trading partners. Because the non-discrimination obligation under antitrust laws would aim at enabling negotiation results which are not influenced by the market dominance of the SEP-owner and which take into account both contracting parties' interests in a balanced manner (mn. 80).
The FCJ even goes so far to state that the SEP-owner could grant different terms and conditions and that such a behaviour would be justified, if the SEP-owner needed to do that to safeguard its own commercial interests. For example, if an SEP-owner would have to accept lower rates in order to be able to get any sort of compensation from certain standard users as they are protected by national agencies who might even issue some sort of threat against the SEP-owner, the SEP-owner would still be free to request its regular rates from other standard users (mn. 102).
That of course will likely lead to a distortion of competition between market players but the FCJ apparently accepts that without even addressing that consequence. The FCJ reiterates that “a reasonable price, regularly [is] not objectively established, but can be determined only as the result of (possibly similar) negotiated market processes”. based on this statement, German courts could further limit their assessment of whether offered rates are in fact FRAND to a minimum and remain focussing on other licenses concluded by the SEP-owner with third parties.
V. FRAND license obligations towards suppliers / 對(duì)供應(yīng)商的FRAND許可義務(wù)
In the given case, FCJ also did not have to address the question what effect a refusal to grant licenses to component manufacturers would have on injunction claims being asserted against the customers of such component manufacturers. However, there are several statements in the judgement which support the license to all position. These are in particular mn. 70, 74 and 80. Here the FCJ states: “Moreover, the manufacturer of a standard-compatible product may expect that he may use the teaching of an SEP anyway - even if only on the basis of a license agreement on reasonable terms (ECJ, WRP 2015, 1080 margin no. 53, 64 - Huawei/ZTE).” Generally speaking, that is the more positive side of the judgement and it has to be noted that the FCJ refers to the right to a license several times.
這項(xiàng)裁決對(duì)初審法院判例法的全面影響仍有待觀察。然而,現(xiàn)在很明顯的是,在Sisvel vs. Haier一案德國(guó)聯(lián)邦法院所做出的判決之下,SEP實(shí)施者必須謹(jǐn)慎地審視他們的談判行為以避免他們?cè)诘聡?guó)專(zhuān)利侵權(quán)訴訟中的FRAND抗辯過(guò)程中出現(xiàn)意外“驚喜”。
The full implications of the ruling on the case law of the courts of first instance remains to be seen. However, what becomes immediately clear is that SEP implementers have to carefully consider their negotiation behaviour under the FCJ’s reasoning in Sisvel vs. Haier in order to avoid unexpected surprises regarding their FRAND defence in German patent infringement proceedings.