US District Court Rules In Favor Of BMW In Patent Dispute With Beacon Navigation

US District Court Rules In Favor Of BMW In Patent Dispute With Beacon Navigation

The automotive giant was embroiled in a battle with a Swiss-based company for 13 years

The US District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan has ruled that German car maker BMW has not infringed the remaining patent in a long-running dispute with Swiss patent-holding company Beacon Navigation.

District Judge Mark Goldsmith granted the summary judgment that BMW did not infringe the ‘511 Patent through its improved vehicle navigation systems. In a separate ruling on the patent’s validity, he partly granted BMW's motion. The invalidity counterclaim is pending.

While the bench rejected BMW's first defence based on the maths principles, it agreed with the company’s argument that claim 1 of the '511 patent meant the navigation system rotates said ‘velocity’, which the GPS receiver ‘provided’. Since its accused navigation systems do not rotate a GPS velocity provided by the GPS receiver, it argued the claim language precluded infringement.

The court also found that BMW had not induced customers to infringe.

The dispute dates to 2011 when Beacon sued several defendants asserting three patents. BMW moved the court for a stay with the case pending at a parallel International Trade Commission (ITC) investigation filed in December 2011. However, unilaterally, Beacon moved to terminate during the discovery.

The case was then transferred to the Michigan court, where it stayed pending six re-examinations at the Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) filed by BMW and other defendants.

After the final re-examination, the stay was lifted. Beacon filed an amended complaint asserting that the only surviving claims of one of the three original patents - the '511 patent relating to vehicle navigation technology.

Representing BMW, Lionel Lavenue, the Reston-based partner at Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner remarked, "We are happy to celebrate BMW Group's complete victory over Beacon Navigation at the Eastern District of Michigan finding all asserted claims not infringed."

Reinhold Diener, the vice president of intellectual property for BMW Group, said the outcome "marks another victory in our long-term strategy for handling meritless patent assertion litigation.”

Michigan-based IP lawyer Jay Schloff of Aidenbaum Schloff and Bloom and TechKnowledge Law Group represented Beacon.