ParkerVision granted Rule 54(b) motion in Qualcomm patent case

ParkerVision (PRKR) announced the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, Orlando division granted ParkerVision’s Rule 54(b) motion in its patent infringement case against Qualcomm (QCOM). This decision clears the way for ParkerVision to immediately appeal the district court’s May 29, 2025 claim construction ruling that led to the stipulated entry of summary judgment of non-infringement for ParkerVision’s receiver patent claims under that claim construction ruling. The Company believes that the district court’s most recent claim construction ruling was in error and contradicts last year’s ruling from the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit that reversed the district court’s previously issued summary judgment order on the same receiver patents. The Federal Circuit’s order also reversed the district court on all other issues on appeal.If the district court’s claim construction ruling is reversed on appeal, as the Company believes it should be, then the stipulated summary judgement of non-infringement thereon will also be reversed. The district court’s order also granted ParkerVision’s request to stay the litigation with respect to the remaining transmitter patent claims that were not impacted by the claim construction order, pending the Federal Circuit’s ruling on the appealed issues, thus avoiding the inefficiency of two separate trials. ParkerVision CEO Jeffrey Parker, commented, “We filed our Rule 54(b) motion so that we could immediately seek Federal Circuit review to challenge the district court’s claim construction ruling which we believe to be in error, which contradicts the Federal Circuit’s prior order that was in our favor, and which we also believe to be inconsistent with the intrinsic evidence in the receiver patents themselves. Following the September 2024 remand from the Federal Circuit, Qualcomm requested that the district court perform additional claim construction on ParkerVision’s receiver patents. Specifically, Qualcomm contented that certain limitations in the patents’ claims require a capacitor to perform RF down-conversion. Even though no intrinsic evidence supports its decision, the district court agreed with Qualcomm and held that the claims of the receiver patents required a capacitor to perform down conversion – a position that we believe was contradicted by the Federal Circuit in their 2024 opinion. Qualcomm’s assertion that the receiver patents recite ‘capacitor down-conversion’ (referred to as the ‘generating limitation’ in ParkerVision I and on appeal to the Federal Circuit) was addressed by ParkerVision in its claim construction brief to the district court earlier this year. We reminded the district court that the Federal Circuit’s opinion supported our position that ParkerVision’s receiver patents use switches, not capacitors, to perform down-conversion – meaning no ‘generating limitation’ exists in these patents. This was one of the key issues examined by the Federal Circuit, which sent the case back for trial last year, reversing the district court’s collateral estoppel finding on similar grounds. We believe that the district court’s claim construction ruling is in conflict with the Federal Circuit’s opinion and is also in conflict with the intrinsic evidence included in the patents. Qualcomm has long represented to multiple courts that its products do not infringe our receiver patents because its products use switches for down conversion. We contend, however that using switches is exactly what the patents cover in this case.”