Patent-holding company Unwired Planet has won the first in a series of London patent trials against Samsung and Huawei, and the company's stock jumped nearly 20 percent as a result.

Judge Colin Birss called the company's patents "essential" to 4G networks in yesterday's decision, which was reported by Bloomberg. The company also sued Google, but Google settled before trial.

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It's Unwired Planet's first win at a patent trial. Unwired Planet sued Apple in a US federal court in 2013, but a judge ruled in May that Apple didn't infringe the company's patents. Unwired Planet is appealing that decision.

The London ruling “goes a considerable way towards validating the Unwired Planet portfolio,” Unwired Planet general counsel Noah Mesel said in a statement.

Unwired Planet has just 16 employees but holds more than 2,000 patents, most of which were purchased from Ericsson in 2013.

The company's infringement claims are scheduled to be resolved in a series of six UK trials that could take more than a year. In the United Kingdom, patent disputes are resolved by specialized judges, not juries. Yesterday's ruling covered just one patent, EP 2,229,744.