In re Nokia Inc. and Nokia Corp.

In a brief order, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit denied a writ of mandamus filed by Nokia Corporation seeking to compel the U.S. International Trade Commission to consider its non-infringement contentions on remand.  In re Nokia Inc. and Nokia Corp., Case No. 14-133 (Fed. Cir. July 24, 2014) (per curiam) (Newman, J., dissenting).

Nokia’s petition for a writ of mandamus was the result of an earlier Federal Circuit ruling in InterDigital Commc’ns LLC v. Int’l Trade Comm’n, (IP Update, Vol. 15, No. 9).  In the InterDigital opinion, the Federal Circuit reversed the International Trade Commission’s finding of infringement and remanded for additional proceedings.  On remand, the Commission determined that Nokia had waived its non-infringement position, and Nokia filed a writ of mandamus.  The Court denied the writ, finding that the InterDigital opinion did not consider whether the Commission could or should consider the argument offered by the respondent on remand, and that the merits of the waiver determination could be considered on appeal.  Judge Newman dissented from the denial of mandamus, finding that language in the InterDigital opinion both clearly considered the argument that the Commission ruled was waived and contemplated that the Commission would address this argument on the merits as opposed to dismissing it procedurally.  Judge Newman further argued in favor of mandamus that Nokia’s non-infringement position was critical to its position on review in InterDigital, that it had raised the issue multiple times before the Commission prior to the InterDigital opinion and that the Commission’s own legal staff had believed it was obligated to address the merits of the argument on remand.