The Automobile Litigation War That Started Quietly

Recently, a costly "automobile lawsuit" quietly kicked off.

Pushing the date forward by 10-20 years, there are very few lawsuits between auto giants. One of the main reasons is that, as a general-purpose technology that has been developed for hundreds of years in the mechanical field, various auto companies have different opinions on their own. The technology mastered is well known, everyone has a tacit understanding with each other, and there are few lawsuits.

However, under the background of the Internet of Everything today, the automobile industry has begun to borrow a lot of technologies from other industries, especially communication technology. In a sense, automobile companies have become technology companies, and technology companies may become automobile companies at any time. The starting point for people to choose a car brand is not only its driving performance, but the connectivity, driver assistance functions and entertainment system of the car are also one of the reasons why people choose a car brand. In this context, auto companies began to pay for the patents involved.

On October 19, 2021, the well-known U.S. patent Cockroach IV sued Toyota Motor Corporation and Honda Motor Corporation in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, accusing them of infringing 11 of its patents; Infringed 12 of its own patents. On April 4, 2022, IV dismissed its lawsuit against Honda in the Eastern District of Texas, but filed a new lawsuit in the Northern District of Texas District Court. The patents involved in the lawsuit involve mobile communication technologies such as wireless network systems and mobile wireless hotspot systems, including 11 patents including US Patent 7,382,771. A well-known blog about software patents pointed out in its article that three of the patents have been declared as the basic patents of the LTE standard, and Toyota and Honda’s lawsuits include Toyota Prius, Lexus, Honda Odyssey, and Accord. mainstream models.

As Arvin Patel, CEO of Fund IV, put it in an article published on October 13, 2021, "the auto industry is moving towards intellectual property liquidation". Members of the well-known patent licensing platform Avanci, such as Qualcomm, Nokia, Ericsson, Interdigital, Philips, Panasonic, Sharp, and nearly two dozen others, are seeking damages from the auto industry for their use of wireless standard essential patents.

We can imagine that automakers and suppliers will face a more complex intellectual property environment in the future, just like the patent war for smartphones. The future war in the auto industry will take at least 10 years and billions of dollars to finally resolve.

Pingzhi will continue to track the progress of the case, if necessary, please contact Pingzhi for more information