The Munich District Court imposed a ban on sale and production throughout Germany. American car manufacturer Ford.
The plaintiff in the Munich court was the Japanese patent administrator IP Bridge.. The verdict can be carried out in one to two weeks, if the automaker does not agree with the plaintiff earlier.
The big problem with all this is the presence of mobile phone chips for which the company does not pay royalties. Models with the “FordPass Connect” feature will be particularly affected. This, however, has been mandatory since 2018 and is commonly known as ecall.
What this system does is that, thanks to its sensors, it automatically calls 112 and reports the exact situation of the accident and the number of passengers in the car. From there, 112 will wait for a response from inside the car to find out more about the accident, or send to emergency services if it does not receive direct communication.
IP Bridge was the only company that was willing to go all the way with Ford on this patent originally filed by Panasonic. If she posts $227 million bail in court, the sentence will be carried out within a maximum of two weeks.
The ordinance even provides removal of all cars from car dealerships and their destruction. In the previous 2021, Ford sold 126,400 vehicles in Germany, so the company will suffer millions in losses in addition to the sales halt in that country.
Ford, for its part, remains silent, as they claim that they have not yet received notices from the court.
More and more technology patent companies are starting to denounce car companies because of a significant increase in the number of new connected cars that require this type of chip.
And that’s what IP Bridge has already sued Volkswagen for the same reason, although, at last, everything was resolved before the matter assumed great force.
It looks like Germany will be in big trouble from now on because it is the world’s leading car exporter.
Source: Computer Hoy
