Lenovo Seeks Halt of Asus Laptop Sales Over Alleged Patent Infringement

Lenovo has filed a lawsuit against Asus, claiming that the company's laptops infringe on four of their patents. "Lenovo is seeking damages and for Asus to stop selling Zenbook laptops and other allegedly infringing products in the U.S.," reports Ars Technica. From the report: The lawsuit [PDF] centers on four patents. The first, entitled "Methods and apparatus for transmitting in resource blocks" was issued in 2021 and relates to minimizing the delay experienced during an uplink package transmission by reducing the number of steps for a wireless device to upload data. Lenovo's lawsuit, which uses Asus' Zenbook Pro 14 OLED (UX6404) as an example of an allegedly infringing product, also claims Asus is selling laptops that violate the wireless wake-on-LAN power management patent issued to Lenovo in 2010.

Another patent Lenovo is suing over was issued in 2010 and entitled "Touchpad diagonal scrolling." It allows users to "initiate a diagonal scroll at any location on a touchpad by using two fingers," the lawsuit says. Finally, Lenovo is upset about Asus' purported infringing of its "Dual shaft hinge with angle timing shaft mechanism" patent rewarded in 2014. Lenovo describes it as a hinge block enabling 2-in-1 laptops to go from clamshell mode to tablet mode. For this accused patent infringement, Lenovo's lawsuit points to Asus' Zenbook Flip 14 UX461, which Asus advertises as having a 360-degree "ErgoLift" hinge that "lifts and tilts the keyboard into the perfect typing position when the display is rotated into laptop mode."

As noted by The Register today, in a letter to the ITC dated November 15 [PDF], Lenovo said it wants Asus to "cease and desist from marketing, advertising, distributing, offering for sale, selling, or otherwise transferring, including the movement or shipment of inventory" products that infringe upon the four patents in question. In a further dig, Lenovo added that a limited exclusion order wouldn't harm US consumers or competition, due to Asus' smaller market share. According to the IDC, Asus represented about 7.1 percent of the PC market (which includes laptops and desktops) in Q3 2023. Lenovo led at 23.5 percent.

How funny

[Anonymous Coward]

A Chinese company that regularly steals western IP, and Chinese judges allows, is now upset that a step-sister company is using their IP and wants it blocked in the west.
So messed up.

Re:How funny

[Anonymous Coward]

A Chinese company that regularly steals western IP, and Chinese judges allows, is now upset that a step-sister company is using their IP and wants it blocked in the west. So messed up.

Messed up? This is entertaining! Let me grab my #4 popcorn shrimp with egg roll...

Re:How funnyWTF the fuck is wrong...

[Anonymous Coward]

...with all these IP stealing Chinamen crying foul?

Re:How funny

[AmiMoJo]

What IP has Lenovo stolen?

Re: How funny

[guruevi]

Almost every one of the patents are things that were already present in either Apple devices or the prevalent netbooks or even some Windows CE PDA of that time (those came in the era of Windows 98/ME/2000/XP and had features such as laptop-tablet conversions)

Re: How funny

[AmiMoJo]

So a lot like when Apple patented MagSafe, even though Japanese manufacturers had been using it for years. Or rounded corners on a flat featureless slate, like existing Samsung devices.

Re: How funny

[K. S. Kyosuke]

So they "stole" it by buying a US company? Interesting.

Yes, clearly Lenovo patented..

[hdyoung]

The hinge.

Yeah yeah I know its more than just the hinge. Still. If our best lawyers focused on the actual important stuff, the world would be a better place.

Re:Yes, clearly Lenovo patented..

[tlhIngan]

The hinge.

Yeah yeah I know its more than just the hinge. Still. If our best lawyers focused on the actual important stuff, the world would be a better place.

Disclosure

Asus Pro 14 oled

[iAmWaySmarterThanYou]

I got mine 3 days ago. They can pull it from my cold dead hands. It's a really nice device and weighs almost nothing. I didn't even bother checking what Lenovo was selling. Bad history with them.

 

Re:Asus Pro 14 oled

[Anonymous Coward]

I've seen your posts. It's no surprise you have "bad history" with a company: You're an arrogant asshole. I agree: I'd pick ASUS over Lenovo anytime. But you still generate your own bad attitude, and it shows in your resulting experiences.

Re:Asus Pro 14 oled

[iAmWaySmarterThanYou]

Lmao, stupid AC. You make me laugh. At you. I'm living so rent free in your hollow skull that you felt the need to post some nonsense slamming a stranger about a laptop purchase. I have clearly impacted your fragile ego in some way by posting my opinion on a tiny dead social media site for nerds. You have impacted me though, too. You clowns always make me laugh. It's a major reason why I keep coming back here. You made me.

I'm renewing my long term lease in your head.

Re:Asus Pro 14 oled

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you see many poor people doing the same?

Another CCP induced pain the ass

[gtall]

Lenovo is a mainland China company and ASUS is a Taiwanese company. I'm suspicious the CCP is sticking their dick into this.

Re:Another CCP induced pain the ass

[Anonymous Coward]

CCP is dickless, so it must be something else that they're sticking in.

Time to kill all crap patents

[gweihir]

And time to punish those that try to file crap patents.

Recently been reading up on uptick on crap Asus

[Deal In One]

Recently have come across more complaints about Asus, from their motherboards to laptops. And the warranty / RMA process being a pain.

Not sure I will be unhappy if Asus gets into some trouble - maybe that will provide them with an incentive to fix their products and customer service.

Re: Recently been reading up on uptick on crap Asu

[buzz_mccool]

My ASUS laptop battery swelled up and well before that had a display that would not backlight itself unless plugged in. My ASUS monitor would shut itself off shortly after power on. I took it apart, found and replaced two swollen capacitors on the power board. It worked another six months until something else gave up the ghost. I gave up and will buy other brands.

ASUS has been decent

[Anonymous Coward]

I had sworn them off after getting 2 bad mobos in early 2001, but they've been decent the last decade or so.

Patents generate licensing revenue.

[jddimarco]

This is the relevant bit: in its Tuesday press release, Lenovo said it decided to make its complaint to the ITC in response to the August 2023 filings Asus made with The Regional Court of Munich patent tribunal. Lenovo claimed that Asus' filings were related to cellular tech for which Lenovo had offered Asus "a cross-licensing deal as a solution". Companies file patents so they can generate licensing revenue from other companies. Sometimes there are disputes about licensing revenue (how much to pay, for what inventions). This latest filing is clearly part of an ongoing dispute about that between Asus and Lenovo. Lawyers will be paid and noise will be made. Eventually they'll settle on an agreement and licensing revenues will again flow unimpeded, continuing to feed the patenting machine on both sides.