Wireless charging is one of my favorite features of modern phones. It’s rare that I plug my phone in with a cable. But if you have a Samsung phone (and I do), it might decide to stop Qi charging. A recent court defeat over a wireless charging patent means Samsung will have to pay up, or lose access to this feature.
In 2022, Mojo Mobility sued Samsung for infringing five of its U.S. wireless charging patents in most of its phones sold from 2016 to the present. By filing the lawsuit in the notorious Eastern District of Texas, Mojo gave Samsung a very good chance of winning — enough so that Samsung attempted to invalidate said patents last year, after refusing Mojo’s licensing efforts since 2013. Samsung officially lost the patent lawsuit on September 13, after “willfully infringing” the patents.
The judge ruled that Samsung was liable for a whopping $192,136,029 in damages. In simple terms, the legal conclusion is that Samsung stole Mojo Mobility’s designs to use in phones, smartwatches, earbuds, and more. If Samsung doesn’t pay the fine, it may have to omit the technology from future products or design new methods of wireless charging that don’t infringe on the patents in question.
It’s possible, though probably unlikely, that the company will be forced to disable wireless charging on existing phones with a software update, according to a report from Phone Arena.
Samsung will almost certainly appeal the decision. The Eastern District of Texas is a popular court for patent lawsuits, which some have dubbed “patent trolling” because of the way the labyrinthine U.S. patent system can be abused, particularly because it seems particularly favorable to patent owners.
In fact, Samsung has found itself in this very same situation before, in this very court, on numerous occasions. By one recent estimate, Samsung is sued by US patent trolls every five days on average. Samsung even sponsored an ice skating rink right across the street from the courthouse in Marshall, Texas… for entirely altruistic reasons, I’m sure. Samsung is defending itself against these lawsuits with an army of lawyers and a massive effort to file its own technology patents, both in the US and around the world.
Even if Samsung’s legal team exhausts all possible options, the most likely outcome will simply be a very large bill (or an undisclosed settlement) paid to Mojo Mobility. Either way, the process is likely to drag on for months or even years before phone users see any real impact, if any.
