Barcelona & London, March 08, 2018 – For the second year in a row at the Mobile World Congress, Spanish antenna technology company Fractus SA and its UK licensing partner Vectis IP Ltd successfully stopped three unlicensed companies from selling mobile phones infringing Fractus’ antenna patents.
The Barcelona Patent Courts granted and enforced preliminary injunctions at the Mobile World Congress against the three infringers and the defendants were served with the court orders and their infringing products were seized.
Understanding the value of the antenna technology incorporated in its mobile phones, one of the defendants has already taken a license under the Fractus Antenna Patents from Vectis, and proceedings have been stopped against this defendant. Proceedings against the others are ongoing.
Jordi Ilario, Vice President, Licensing at Fractus, commented: “Our successful collaboration with Vectis continues to yield results and this success is once again a recognition of the value of the Fractus antenna technology and the combined enforcement expertise of Fractus and Vectis. Such actions are part of a broader worldwide enforcement campaign that will stop infringement of the Fractus patents and create a level playing field for the protection of our licensees.”
Sandro Spina, Director of Licensing at Vectis, added: “After almost two years of cooperation with Fractus we are happy to see that the antenna program is highly recognized in the market with an ever-growing number of licensees. Regrettably, some companies do not respect IP, and choose to ignore the law and actively undermine the innovation ecosystem, believing that it is possible to copy technology they didn’t invent without consequence or cost. The injunctions at MWC demonstrate that this is not the case and stress the importance of respecting IP rights.”
Fractus’ antenna technology is used in most of the devices integrating multiband antennas and, according to third party 2017 market data, it is already licensed to companies covering more than 70% of the market for cellular devices in the US and Europe.
About Fractus
Fractus is an early pioneer in developing internal antennas for smartphones, tablets and other wireless Internet of Things devices and holds an intellectual property rights portfolio of more than 30 inventions protected through over 120 patents and patent applications in the United States, Europe and Asia. Among the numerous awards and honours the company has received for its innovative work, Fractus was named a 2005 Davos World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer and one of Red Herring’s top innovative companies for 2006. It also won the 2004 Frost & Sullivan Award for technological innovation and the 2010 National Communication Award of the Catalan Government in the telecommunications category. A team of Fractus inventors was finalist for the EPO European Inventor Award 2014. On November 2015, Fractus was awarded Academiae Dilecta by the Spanish Royal Engineering Academy. Fractus has teamed with UK based VECTIS IP Ltd. to license its antenna patent portfolio.
About Vectis
Vectis is a UK based IP and technology licensing company that believes in the key role of intellectual property in promoting innovation. Vectis supports a level playing field for IP owners and implementers, working with both to unlock the full value of innovation sharing. With its global reach, Vectis is a solution provider and a contributor to a fairer and more sustainable innovation system.
