The 200580044792.1 patent, related to the transmission and rendering of information to mobile devices, was deemed completely invalid by the Patent Re-examination Board. Since September 2014, the agency had deemed 13 Vringo patents to be completely or partially invalid. The decisions of the Patent Re-examination Board are subject to appeal by Vringo.

ZTE reserves the right to pursue legal action in other jurisdictions against similar intellectual property assets held by Vringo. 200580044792.1 is equivalent to United States patents US20060095515A1 and US8150920B2, as well as European patents EP1810445A1 and EP1810445A4.

“The high percentage of Vringo patents invalidated by the Patent Re-examination Board raises serious concerns on the quality of intellectual property assets held by Vringo,” said Shen Jianfeng, Chief Intellectual Property Officer of ZTE. “We remain committed to licensing intellectual property of proven technological merit based on FRAND principles.”

The decisions in China follow Vringo’s efforts to license a broad patent portfolio to ZTE, including patents that have since then been invalidated by the Patent Re-examination Board, while at the same time relying on the threat of litigation and injunctions to bring pressure to bear on the counter-party. ZTE believes such tactics to be stifling to innovation and anti-competitive.

On June 1, the Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court will hold a private hearing into ZTE’s anti-monopoly litigation case against Vringo. All materials, submitted evidence and testimonies are considered confidential.

In January, the District Court of Dusseldorf rejected Vringo’s claims against ZTE over patents ‘EP 136’ and ‘EP 941’ that allegedly relate to hotspot functionality in mobile devices and the use of Google Maps respectively. Vringo Germany has filed an appeal against the decisions at the Higher Regional Court of Düsseldorf. These appeal proceedings are still pending.

In February, ZTE applied to the United States Patent and Trademark Office to re-examine five Vringo patents.

As a globally-leading technology innovator, ZTE respects the intellectual property of other companies. ZTE has filed applications for more than 60,000 patents, with over 17,000 granted. ZTE ranked third globally in patent applications under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) in the latest annual report published by the World Intellectual Property Organization in March. That was the fifth successive year in which ZTE was ranked inside the Global Top-3 by WIPO.