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? Our disclosure to Huf dates from 2012 and our published application from 7 August 2013. If Huf’s own records predate that, they should be easy to produce.

2. Who supplied the initial design to Huf, and under what contract? Ask for the 2012 to 2014 agreements with the intermediary and any warranties of ownership or affidavits he gave. Ask whether those warranties were ever verified.

3. What did Huf receive from the inventors directly, and when? Huf was written to before the February 2015 announcement. Ask for that correspondence and for the internal response to it.

4. Has GB2516939A been considered in Huf’s own patent filings? The application is cited by later patents in the US and China. Ask whether Huf’s freedom-to-operate analysis for Phone as a Key addressed it.

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

What we will provide

Under an appropriate confidentiality arrangement we will provide the NDA, 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.