For acquirers, lenders, customers and counsel
Questions to ask about the origin of Phone as a Key
Sodecia holds 30% of Huf and has said it intends to increase that. Every step up in ownership, every refinancing and every OEM contract for Phone as a Key is a moment when someone signs off on the provenance of the technology. These are the questions we think that person should ask.
The questions
1. When did Huf first document the phone-as-a-key architecture internally, and by whom? Huf saw Secure ID from March 2012, funded a UK joint venture to prove it from January 2013, and its directors signed the proof of concept off as working on 16 October 2013. Huf’s own priority filing is dated 22 May 2014 and names one of those directors as an inventor. If Huf’s internal records predate October 2013, they should be easy to produce.
2. On what basis did Huf conclude it owned the IP? Ask for the affidavit of ownership given by L&A and Spaggetti in early 2014, and for Huf’s assessment of it, bearing in mind that Huf had removed L&A from the joint venture for dishonesty in December 2013. Ask whether Huf relied on the Companies House entries naming Michael Greaves as an officer of Spaggetti, and whether it knew that Companies House later determined all of those entries were fraudulent and removed them. How Huf got it.
3. What did Huf receive from the inventors directly, and when? The confidentiality agreement and the side document recording the origin of the IP were put before Huf’s directors at its lawyers’ offices on 5 November 2013, with the police report. Huf was written to again in 2014 and before the February 2015 announcement. Ask for that correspondence and for the internal response to it.
4. Was GB2516939A considered when Huf filed and prosecuted its own family? Huf’s German priority application of 22 May 2014 (EP2997550B1, US10589718B2) claims the same three-part architecture. GB2516939A was filed nine months earlier and is not among the references considered. Ask whether the inventors named on Huf’s family had seen our disclosure, and whether Huf’s freedom-to-operate analysis for Phone as a Key ever addressed GB2516939A.
5. What is the accrued exposure? Ask how the licensing position of Phone as a Key and Liberkee was represented in the Sodecia transaction documents, the refinancing, and in customer contracts.
What you can verify without us
| Item | Where |
|---|---|
| GB2516939A: inventors, dates, claims, status | Google Patents · UK IPO Ipsum |
| Later patents citing GB2516939A | Google Patents “Cited by” list on the same page |
| Huf’s Phone as a Key product history | huf-group.com |
| Sodecia stake and management change, May 2025 | Huf newsroom · Sodecia |
| EU merger clearance, 6 May 2025 | MarkLines (EC case register) |
| Huf Secure Mobile Limited (08345977), the UK joint venture: directors including Sven Gennermann and Phillip Shaw | Companies House |
| The contractor’s companies: officers, name changes, dissolution | Autovators Limited (07396085), formerly Spaggetti · Spaggetti Ltd (04917261) |
| Liberkee GmbH (formerly Huf Secure Mobile GmbH): directors, control agreements, rename, liquidation | Commercial register, Amtsgericht Wuppertal HRB 25874 (North Data) · liberkee.com |
What we will provide
Under an appropriate confidentiality arrangement we will provide the confidentiality agreement, the joint venture documents, the correspondence with Huf, the police report reference and the original design documents to Huf’s or Sodecia’s advisers, to litigation counsel, and to journalists working on the story. We are open to a conversation about resolution. Contact us.