According to a report from Heise.de, Huawei has taken legal action against AVM in the midst of a bunch of patent disputes. This time, the focus is on two essential WLAN patents crucial for using Wi-Fi 6.
While one of the lawsuits didn’t go in Huawei’s favor, the Munich I Regional Court made a decision in early November 2023 on the other case. This particular one revolves around something called ‘signaling fields’ in the Wi-Fi 6 standard. These fields basically tell whether a data packet should go to one recipient or multiple ones.
AVM had some complaints about procedural errors, but the judges brushed those aside. They also didn’t pay attention to AVM mentioning fair licensing negotiations under FRAND terms. FRAND is all about making sure negotiations are fair and reasonable for everyone involved.
Now, here’s the twist: AVM isn’t taking this lying down. They’ve appealed the ruling and taken the matter up to the Higher Regional Court in Munich. They’re questioning if the patent in question even applies to their Fritzboxes, those familiar routers from AVM. On top of that, AVM has gone ahead and filed another lawsuit claiming the patent is invalid with the Federal Patent Court.
AVM seems pretty confident that they’ll come out on top in the end. In a statement shared with Heise.de, they brought up how Huawei’s case against Netgear got paused in Düsseldorf’s Regional Court for the same patent. They’ve also mentioned a strong opinion from the Federal Patent Court saying that the patent might not be valid in its current form.
Now, here’s the kicker: If things don’t go well for AVM, there might be a ban on selling the top models of Fritzboxes. These are the routers with Wi-Fi 6, Wi-Fi 6E, and Wi-Fi 7. The report suggests that already delivered Fritzboxes might need to be recalled and taken out of circulation. However, AVM’s reassuring folks who’ve bought these routers that there won’t be any impact on them if things take a legal turn.
