AVM risks sales ban on Fritz!Box routers due to possible infringement of Huawei's WLAN patents

AVM is accused of violating two Huawei WLAN patents with its Fritz!Box routers. The latter therefore filed two lawsuits, one of which was dismissed. The other has been approved and in an initial ruling the Munich court considers a sales ban justified, Heise writes.

This concerns the Wi-Fi 6 technique orthogonal frequency-division multiple access , which allows WLAN channels to send data packets to multiple clients simultaneously. Huawei’s patent concerns an addition to this that ensures that signal fields can be used to determine whether the packet should go through one or more clients, so that packet collisions are prevented.

Because Fritz!Boxes use the latter technology, Huawei argues that AVM should have paid a license. However, the German manufacturer refers to the FRAND law in its defense. In short, this means that companies may temporarily use a patent that is considered essential for the standard, without paying a license, provided that the patent holder (in this case Huawei) does not (or does not conclude in time) the discussions surrounding a licensing agreement. trying to end.

However, the latter is not the case here, the Munich Regional Court states in its first ruling. Huawei has been fully vindicated and all AVM objections have been rejected. If this judgment becomes final, AVM will no longer be allowed to sell its WLAN products with support for the Wi-Fi 6, Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7 standards, including all top models of the Fritz!Box. Because AVM has appealed against the aforementioned ruling, it is not yet binding.

Source: Heise

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