On September 10, a court in Munich, Germany ruled that Daimler lost the mobile technology patent lawsuit against Sharp in Japan. The court held that Daimler used its technology without Sharp's permission. The court's ruling will allow Sharp to ask for a ban on Daimler cars in Germany. This is the second time that Mercedes-Benz has been sued for mobile technology. Prior to this, it had a patent dispute with Nokia and was taken to court, and finally paid a deposit of 700 million euros.
But this time it's not as simple as before. Sharp applied to the court to ban Mercedes-Benz from selling in the EU, especially in Germany. Sharp only needs to provide a mortgage of 5.5 million euros to implement the ban. You know, before Nokia was asked by the court to pay a mortgage deposit of 7 billion euros, if Mercedes complained, it would have to compensate Mercedes-Benz, which made Nokia afraid to apply for an injunction for risk reasons. This time, the Munich court lowered Sharp's threshold, and Sharp could ban Mercedes-Benz from selling in Germany almost effortlessly.
In this case, Mercedes-Benz has two options. The first is to ask the court to increase the amount of the deposit. After all, Nokia has a precedent. After increasing the quota, Sharp, which has been losing money for years, will be unable to pay the deposit, thus making it possible for Mercedes-Benz to stop selling locally. The possibility of abortion completely ruined the previous lawsuit. The second is to settle with Sharp out of court, give a certain settlement fee, and pay the patent fee for the follow-up model. At present, the second possibility is higher.
Of course, the cost of out-of-court settlement will not be low. After all, now Sharp's income and expenditure are seriously out of balance, and patents touch porcelain everywhere to make money. Some experts estimate that if Mercedes-Benz and Sharp choose to settle, they will need at least 200-600 million euros. For Mercedes-Benz, how many cars do you have to sell in China to earn back? Originally, Mercedes-Benz has lost a lot of money in North America in recent years because of the emission incident, and its cash flow is very tight, which is not a small expense for Mercedes-Benz.
The life of Mercedes-Benz has been very difficult in recent years, and the exhaust door incident has paid a huge price for Mercedes-Benz. From the simple collocation of Mercedes-Benz China to domestic models, we can see that Mercedes-Benz gave up the bottom line of making more money in the future and saved the whole group by cutting China leeks. The future of Mercedes-Benz, which is now plagued by various problems, is still unknown. If Mercedes-Benz is mishandled this time and Sharp succeeds in applying for a ban, then Mercedes-Benz's failure to sell cars in Germany is not only an economic loss, but also a fatal blow to the brand. As a century-old automobile brand, it is a very shameful thing to be banned in your own country.
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