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CTOnews.com, Sept. 1 (Reuters)-A US appeals court confirmed on Wednesday that Apple, HTC HTC and ZTE won patents in charges of infringing wireless technology by importing their devices.

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said the smartphones, smartwatches, tablets and other LTE-enabled devices of the three companies did not infringe INVT SPE LLC's rights in the two patents originally owned by Panasonic.

The companies and their lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

CTOnews.com learned that INVT is a patent holding company and belongs to an investment fund managed by Fortress Investment Group LLC, a subsidiary of Softbank Corp. Group.

Fortress won a separate lawsuit brought by Apple and Intel last year, which alleges that it and its affiliates, including INVT, violated antitrust laws by hoarding thousands of patents and demanding exorbitant license fees. Apple later dropped out of the case and is currently appealing.

INVT filed a lawsuit with the US International Trade Commission against Apple, HTC and ZTE in 2018, accusing them of infringing their patents on devices that comply with LTE wireless standards and seeking to ban imports of suspected infringing devices.

The committee ruled on equipment manufacturers in 2020, a decision recently upheld by a panel of three judges in the Federal Circuit Court.

The Federal Circuit also found that the patent was not important to the LTE standard and that the devices did not constitute infringement simply because of their LTE capabilities. The court held that the rest of the appeal was meaningless because other patents of INVT had expired. Both Apple and ZTE have previously withdrew from the appeal.

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