Similar suit in U.S. courts involving patent infringement starts this week and is expected to proceed through Sept. 24 A German court stayed a patent-infringement case that Qualcomm filed against Nokia, as hearings regarding a similar case in the U.S. International Trade Commission suit continue.On Tuesday, the District Court of Dusseldorf, Germany, ordered a stay of proceedings until further notice based on a request by Qualcomm, Nokia said. A hearing in that case had been scheduled for Tuesday.Meanwhile, hearings for the patent-infringement case that Qualcomm brought against Nokia in the U.S. ITC started on Monday and will last until Sept. 24. At issue are patents Qualcomm owns related to power control used in EDGE (Enhanced Data GSM Environment) and GPRS (General Packet Radio Service). The initial ITC complaint included six Qualcomm patents, but Qualcomm later reduced the complaint to cover just three. Qualcomm initially declared one of the patents as essential to the standards, but later withdrew the essentiality declaration, according to Nokia.Qualcomm did identify the patent as one that may be essential, but after further investigation determined that it wasn’t, said Alex Rogers, legal counsel for Qualcomm. But that issue is irrelevant to this case, he said, which charges Nokia with patent infringement.The hearings this week are dedicated to Qualcomm testimony and has included participation by Chuck Wheatley and Ana Weiland, former Qualcomm developers who worked on the patented technology, Rogers said. Nokia will also have five days to present its witnesses. The mobile giant will argue that it does not infringe on the patents and that the patents are invalid, it said.The judge will issue an initial determination after the hearings are complete. The commission then has an opportunity to accept or modify the judge’s decision and issue a final determination.The U.S. ITC case is one of several ongoing suits between Qualcomm and Nokia. In August, Nokia asked the ITC to launch a separate investigation, charging Qualcomm with patent infringement. In June, Nokia charged Qualcomm with infringing on patents in its MediaFlo and Brew products. In a statement in May, Nokia said that Qualcomm has filed 11 patent suits against Nokia in just over a year and a half. The ongoing dispute between the companies likely stems from their failure to renegotiate their patent licensing agreement that expired in April. Nokia has said that it believes Qualcomm, which is well-known for its development of the CDMA wireless technologies, charges more than fair and reasonable rates when licensing the technology to be used in standards-based equipment.In a separate intellectual-property battle, the ITC recently banned the import of mobile phones with certain Qualcomm chips, based on a case Broadcom filed. Technology Industry