Due to a lack of patents, the district court in Munich has now imposed a Germany-wide sales and production ban on Ford. However, the car manufacturer was able to avert the enforcement of the penalties by acquiring the missing licenses.
Due to a lack of licenses, the Munich district court had imposed a Germany-wide sales and production ban on Ford. The reason for the verdict: according to the court’s conviction, mobile radio chips are installed in the cars of the US carmaker, for which the group does not pay any license fees.
However, an agreement has now been reached with the patent administrator Avanci. The company writes on its website: “The agreement gives Ford access to all essential 4G, 3G and 2G standard patents held by the 49 patent holders currently participating in the Avanci licensing program, as well as all patent holders who join the program in the future to use them in Ford’s connected vehicles.”
Specifically, it is about the e-call system, which has been mandatory in all new cars in the EU since 2018. In order to be able to operate this emergency call function, mobile radio chips are required in the cars. However, these are also increasingly taking on entertainment and navigation functions.
In Munich, the lawsuit was filed by a total of eight holders of mobile phone patents. The national Japanese patent exploiter IP Bridge prevailed as plaintiff before the district court.
In order for the judgment to be enforced, IP Bridge now had to deposit a security deposit of 227 million euros with the court, according to “Wirtschaftswoche”. If Ford hadn’t acquired the necessary licenses after all, the judgment could have been enforced in one to two weeks – Ford would then no longer have been allowed to sell cars in Germany. What’s more, the verdict would have even provided for the recall of all cars from dealers and their destruction.
Ford was the seventh largest manufacturer in Germany with around 126,400 cars sold in 2021.
Deutsche Bahn sold a total of around 38,000 9-euro tickets on which no name was printed. The nameless tickets apparently only went over the counters in Munich. Customers should now add the name themselves.
On our e-mobility portal EFAHRER.com you will find all e-vehicles available on the German market
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