Nokia Technologies OY & Anor. v Oneplus Limited Technology (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd & Ors.

In a patent validity dispute, the court held that the patent was valid and that the admitted essentiality of the patent meant that claim 1 was infringed by relevant 4G and 5G functionality.

For common general knowledge, the question is whether information was generally accepted by the skilled person. Individual technical proposals remain distinct from common general knowledge unless their contents have achieved that status. For obviousness, a mosaic of prior-art documents must be obvious to assemble; the availability of several obvious routes does not itself establish obviousness. A disclosure anticipates only where it gives clear and unmistakeable directions, not merely a broad possibility. Computer-implemented subject matter is assessed using the Aerotel structured approach, focusing on the actual technical contribution.

Nokia alleged that Oppo companies infringed European Patent (UK) No. 2 981 103 B1, a standards-essential patent concerning the ordering and allocation of Zadoff-Chu sequences for LTE random-access preambles. Oppo accepted essentiality and infringement in principle, but challenged validity on anticipation, obviousness, added matter and excluded subject matter.

The principal issues were whether the patent was anticipated by European Patent Application EP 1 971 097 A2 (Woo), whether it was obvious over the combination of two RAN1 technical proposals (ZTE and LGE), whether the combination of cyclic allocation and the claimed ordering scheme constituted added matter, and whether the claimed searching unit related to excluded subject matter under the Patents Act 1977.

1. Validity and infringement. The patent was valid. Its essentiality was admitted, and claim 1 was infringed by 4G and 5G functionality in the Oppo phones.
2. Common general knowledge. Common general knowledge consists of information generally accepted by the skilled person and suitable as a basis for further action. In a rapidly developing technical field, it may be proved from communications, technical proposals and related materials, but individual proposals are not automatically common general knowledge. ZTE and LGE were specific proposals under discussion and had not achieved general acceptance.
3. Anticipation. Under section 2(3) of the Patents Act 1977, only matter in the earlier application which both forms part of the published application and has the required earlier priority can be used. A disclosure must give clear and unmistakeable directions. A document may be read as a whole when determining the information it objectively discloses, including later material which lacks priority, although the point was not necessary to the result. Woo was unclear around paragraph [0055]. Even if its broad teaching embraced the claimed sequence of steps, the specific combination was not clearly disclosed.
4. Obviousness. The court applied the principles in Actavis v ICOS, Pozzoli and Technograph. The skilled person would not identify the alleged defect in ZTE without invention, would have no obvious reason to move from ZTE to LGE, and would not regard the two self-contained schemes as modular components for combination. The stepwise cross-examination of the expert did not establish overall obviousness. Cyclic interpretation was not obvious from ZTE.
5. Added matter. The application as filed clearly disclosed the combination of cyclic allocation with the three-stage ordering scheme. The skilled person would understand that the second embodiment preserved the relevant benefits of the earlier ordering schemes, including the benefit supporting cyclic allocation.
6. Excluded subject matter. The binding Aerotel approach remained applicable. The actual contribution was technical. It enabled reduced power use, lower signalling overhead, reduced implementation complexity and improved network throughput and data rates. Network planning was not the whole contribution.
7. The parties were to address the form of order. Time for seeking permission to appeal was directed not to run until after that hearing.