Sure, injunctions are available under French law.
However, Nokia's defense to an injunction is that they have an irrevocable license to implement each patent declared essential IPR, and an injunction would be wrongful revocation of this license. Therefore, no injunction can issue.
Qualcomm can not assert wrongful infringement, they can only assert that they aren't being paid what they are due under the licensed infringement (this is a different argument). Nokia's claim is that the reason Qualcomm isn't being paid is because they haven't proposed the price.
Nokia's obvservation is that each essential IPR is the subject of a separately enforceable licensing agreement between Nokia and Qualcomm, and for sure, Qualcomm has not quoted a license fee for each patent separately... so for sure, IF under French law these individual contracts do exist, THEN Qualcomm has granted a license to Nokia for each patent, AND FURTHERMORE, the price will remain legitimately in dispute until such time as Qualcomm fulfills its obligation and names its price. One patent at a time.
In other words, sure, an injunction is available, but first Qualcomm has to do the unthinkable. And since Qualcomm hasn't done that yet, and probably doesn't want to, perhaps they might want to think a bit more before threatening injunction. |
