MARSHALL – Lawyers for a Dallas-area company that obtained patents of a since bankrupt innovator told an East Texas jury they will prove tech giant Nokia of America Corporation used its technology to improve Nokia routers without paying royalties as trial began Wednesday.
At issue in the trial before Chief U.S. District Judge Rodney Gilstrap are three patents that originated with Israeli-based Corrigent and are now owned by Correct Transmission, Greg Dovel, partner at Santa Monica, California-based Dovel & Luner representing Correct Transmission, told jurors. But Nokia denies it uses the technology covered in the patents and is challenging the validity of one patent.
“Nokia investigated Corrigent’s technology, liked what they saw and bought $4 million worth of it” before the company shuttered, Dovel said in opening statements.
Corrigent went out of business in 2015. Its patents were sold in a bankruptcy sale to Orckit, which transferred some patents to Correct Transmission to license and enforce, Dovel said.
Correct Transmission’s lawsuit, filed in September 2022, initially claimed Nokia infringed five patents.
Orckit is entitled to a percentage of any revenue Correct Transmission generates, Dovel added. Correct Transmission is seeking about $30 million in damages from Nokia.
By 2016, Nokia’s routers incorporated the patented technology, Dovel alleged. Orckit, which tried to license the patents, later sent a letter to Nokia to gauge the company’s interest in the inventions, which showed Nokia knew about the patents, Dovel said.
Nokia lawyer John Haynes, an Atlanta-based partner at Alston & Bird, argued the technology covered in Correct Transmission’s patents is “not very good” and fails to provide the improvements its inventors thought it would.
“No one in the marketplace wanted it and Nokia doesn’t use it,” Haynes told the jury.
Haynes, who characterized Correct Transmission’s business model as buying patents off other people, told jurors to expect “a lot of hand-waving” but implored them to “look for the evidence.”
“There are a lot of words but not a lot of evidence,” Haynes said.
The patents at issue are U.S. Patent Nos: 7,127,523; 7,283,465 and 7,768,928.
Correct Transmission is also represented by Jeff Eichmann of Eichmann and James Travis Underwood of Gillam & Smith.
Nokia is also represented by Michael Clayton Deane, Caleb J. Bean and Nicholas Tang Tsui of Alston & Bird, Michael Charles Smith of Scheef & Stone and Deron R. Dacus of The Dacus Firm.
The case is 2:22-cv-00343.