The UK High Court issued a judgment that Samsung and Huawei infringe an LTE standards-essential patent (SEP) held by Unwired Planet. Justice Birss ruled that Unwired Planet’s patent EP (UK) 2 229 744 is valid and is infringed by wireless telecommunication networks which operate in accordance with the relevant LTE standard, and thus is essential to the LTE standard, known as 3GPP TS 36.322 release 8 version 8.8.0.

"This is a great result and demonstrates that the hard work behind an invention contributed to this industry standard and deployed in LTE handsets around the world has been recognized as valuable by the UK court," said Unwired Planet CEO Boris Teksler. "We have no desire to litigate, and we believe that results like this one will minimize the need for further litigation with other potential licensees."

It is not yet known whether the defendants will ask the court for permission to appeal. As the prevailing party, Unwired Planet will be entitled to reimbursement of a substantial portion of its legal expenses incurred in litigating this part of the case. The amount of that reimbursement will be determined at a future hearing.

As previously announced by Unwired Planet, this is the first of five UK patent infringement trials scheduled to continue into the summer of 2016. The next UK trial is scheduled to begin the week of November 30, 2015.

A sixth trial is scheduled for October 2016 in which the court will consider commercial law questions, including the question of how to apply "fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory," or "FRAND," licensing principles to the standards-essential patents at issue in this series of cases. The outcome of the commercial case will establish the measure of damages to be awarded.

In addition, Unwired Planet said that parallel litigation in Germany will continue with a further trial that begins on November 26, 2015.

Unwired Planet, Inc. is an intellectual property company focused exclusively on the mobile industry. The company's patent portfolio of approximately 2,500 issued and pending US and foreign patents, includes technologies that allow mobile devices to connect to the Internet and enable mobile communications. The portfolio spans 2G, 3G, and 4G technologies, as well as cloud-based mobile applications and services.