TCT Mobile

TCT Mobile (TCT Mobile Limited, formerly T&A Mobile Phones Limited) is the mobile-device business of TCL Communication Technology Holdings Limited. It was established in 2004 as a joint venture between France's Alcatel and China's TCL Communication, which bought out Alcatel's 45% stake in 2005. The group is headquartered in Shenzhen, China, with TCT Mobile Europe SAS in Nanterre, France, and US operations (TCT Mobile (US) Inc.) in Irvine, California. TCL Communication listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (2618.HK) in 2004 but was privatized by T.C.L. Industries Holdings and delisted on 30 September 2016; it is now wholly owned within the TCL group (TCL Technology Group Corp., 000100.SZ). TCL Communication reported roughly HK$28.6 billion in revenue and more than 13,500 employees globally in 2015, per company statements.

The business designs, develops and markets mobile devices in over 160 countries: feature phones, smartphones (entry PIXI, mid-range POP, higher-end IDOL series), tablets, and mobile broadband hotspots. Devices are sold under the TCL brand and under the Alcatel brand (a Nokia/Alcatel-Lucent trademark used under license), and from 2016–2020 also under the BlackBerry brand. In the US, distribution runs mainly through carriers such as AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint and Cricket. This is an operating company, not a non-practicing entity.

In the tracked data TCT Mobile appears once, as plaintiff, before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, with no defendant-side cases recorded — a profile reflecting defensive IPR petitions rather than an assertion campaign. The petitions arose from patent litigation brought against the TCL entities (Fundamental Innovation Systems International LLC v. TCT Mobile (US) Inc. et al., D. Del. No. 1:20-cv-00552).

The tracked matter, TCT Mobile v. Fundamental Innovation Systems International LLC, covers inter partes reviews (e.g., IPR2021-00597/00598/00599) challenging USB-charging patents (U.S. 8,169,187; 8,232,766; 7,834,586) asserted by Fundamental Innovation Systems, a patent-assertion entity holding former BlackBerry/RIM charger patents. In IPR2021-00599 the Board found all challenged claims of the '586 patent unpatentable.