German courts have dismissed a $2.2 billion lawsuit filed against Apple Inc.

At the Mannheim Regional Court, two different chambers, or panels of judges, announced three rulings on standard-essential patent (SEP) infringement cases set forth by IPCom. As Foss Patents noted, IPCom is a "patent licensing firm based in the Munich area that acquired the wireless patent portfolio of Bosch years after the latter had exited the car phone market and is now monetizing it."

The Mannheim Regional Court ruled Apple and HTC, which IPCom sued on damages claims respectively, did not infringe on specific IPCom patents regarding the 3G/UMTS standard. As a result, the German court dismissed IPCom's lawsuits. IPCom can issue an appeal on the verdict.

IPCom has been considered as part of Patent Assertion Entities (PAEs), or "patent trolls." According to research firm PatentFreedom, Apple and Google have each been sued more than 190 times in the last five years by PAEs, which are companies that "get most of their revenue from patent licensing and enforcement." In 2012, patent trolls have threatened over 100,000 companies with patent infringement claims.

The White House report, titled "Patent Assertion and U.S. Innovation," stated the patent trolls could sue "thousands of companies at once" despite not having "specific evidence" of an infringed patent. As a result, tech companies have difficulties in defending their own patents.

President Barack Obama stated in February 2013, "...[PAEs] don't actually produce anything themselves. They're just trying to essentially leverage and hijack somebody else's idea and see if they can extort some money out of them... [O]ur efforts at patent reform only went about halfway to where we need to go and what we need to do is pull together additional stakeholders and see if we can build some additional consensus on smarter patent laws."

Tech companies and politicians have tried to combat against patent trolls.

In the U.S., two senators have introduced the "Transparency in Assertion of Patents Act." The bill would strengthen the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) against patent trolls by requiring more transparency such as disclosures in demand letters by PAEs to businesses they alleged patent violations.

"By requiring transparency and basic, common sense disclosures, this bill cracks down on the commercial practice of mailing hundreds, if not thousands, of misleading letters that seek to extort money from small businesses," said Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee. "The bill isn't about patent law or patent rights; it's simply about protecting unsuspecting victims from bad actors and their despicable behavior."

Meanwhile in Europe, companies such as Apple, BlackBerry, Cisco, Google, Microsoft, Samsung, and Vodafone, to name a few, formed a coalition urging the European Union (E.U.) to discuss the matter of patent trolls.

"Europe has a unique opportunity to avoid the abuses of PAEs that reportedly cost U.S. businesses $29 billion for cases filed in 2011 alone and caused economic damage of approximately half a trillion dollars from 1990 to 2010," noted the open letter by the tech companies to the Member States of the E.U. on Feb. 25. The stakes of leaving these issues unaddressed are high and unfortunately well-known by the undersigned organizations. Recent press reports suggesting that some PAEs welcome bifurcation within the UPC (Unified Patent Court) further show that a system with perceived loopholes has the potential to open the floodgates to a detrimental form of patent litigation."

__

For the latest updates, follow Latin Post's Michael Oleaga on Twitter: @EditorMikeO