Court puts sales ban on Ford’s internet-linked cars in Germany in patent dispute
BERLIN (Reuters) – A German court docket has put a nation-wide gross sales and manufacturing ban on Ford automobiles in a position to set up web connection, it stated, as a part of a lawsuit over the violation of wi-fi expertise patents.
The decision by the Munich regional court docket shouldn’t be legally binding and may nonetheless be appealed, it stated, including a 227 million euro ($240 million) safety fee by the plaintiff, Japan’s IP Bridge Inc, was required for it to turn into “provisionally enforceable”.
The ruling displays the rising pressure between tech corporations that need automakers to pay royalties for applied sciences utilized in navigation programs, car communications and self-driving automobiles of their push in direction of autonomous driving.
“Purpose of this court docket case is the licensing of standard-essential patents for LTE networks. Since we didn’t but have obtained the written opinion of the court docket, we don’t wish to touch upon this matter at the moment,” Ford stated in a emailed assertion.
($1 = 0.9476 euros)
(Reporting by Christina Amann; Writing by Christoph Steitz; Enhancing by Chizu Nomiyama)
