Düsseldorf, February 22, 2024 – US chip manufacturer Intel has lost a patent dispute with the company R2 Semiconductor before Düsseldorf Regional Court (Landgericht). The case concerned a technology for power supply within certain processors. On February 7, 2024, the court prohibited Intel from selling these processors. Intel must also disclose how many of the processors have been sold in Germany so far to determine its liability to pay damages to R2 Semiconductor.
Intel has announced its intention to appeal the ruling. Among other things, the manufacturer accused R2 Semiconductor of being a “patent troll”, a company that wrongly accuses other companies of infringing patents and then demands high license fees for these. Cohausz & Florack (C&F) sees this as a baseless accusation, at least in Germany: “The term ‘patent troll’ is only of relevance in court systems in which the costs of proceedings are distributed very unevenly between the claimant and the defendant,” says Gottfried Schüll, patent attorney and partner at C&F. Unlike in the USA, for example, this option does not exist for claimants in Germany, as the patent law system in the latter stipulates that the claimant and the defendant bear the cost risk for the court proceedings to the same degree.
Before the sales ban ordered by Düsseldorf Regional Court comes into force, the German legal position requires the claimant to provide a bank guarantee to secure any potential subsequent claims for damages. Such claims for damages against the claimant due to unwarranted enforcement may arise during appeal following the reversal of a first instance ruling.
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