ITC to investigate Apple on allegations of Ericsson patent infringement
Following formal complaints by Ericsson, the U.S. International Trade Commission on Monday showed intent to launch an investigation into Apple's potentially illegal use of patented LTE technology.
The ITC investigation will take a closer look at Apple's use of granted Ericsson wireless network patents, specifically those applying to LTE technology, as well as other IP deemed "critical" to certain Apple products.
As noted by PC World, the ITC decision is a reaction to a legal barrage Ericsson lobbed at Apple in February. The Swedish telecommunications giant lodged two ITC complaints and seven lawsuits with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, seeking both damages and injunctions against Apple product sales.
Apple sparked a legal battle in January by suing Ericsson over allegedly excessive royalty rates applied to previously licensed LTE technology. Shortly before Apple sued, the Cupertino company refused to re-sign a contract with Ericsson, saying the now expired licensing terms were excessive as patents-in-suit should not be considered standard essential.
"Ericsson seeks to exploit its patents to take the value of these cutting-edge Apple innovations, which resulted from years of hard work by Apple engineers and designers and billions of dollars of Apple research and development -- and which have nothing to do with Ericsson's patents," Apple's original complaint reads.
Ericsson said it offered Apple fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) pricing in hopes of striking a new deal, but exact terms were not revealed. Court filings show Ericsson sought a portion of overall device sales, while Apple argued a more equitable deal would charge on a per-component basis. Overall, Ericsson is asserting more than 41 separate patents against Apple relating to a variety of wireless standards and technologies.
The ITC investigation will take a closer look at Apple's use of granted Ericsson wireless network patents, specifically those applying to LTE technology, as well as other IP deemed "critical" to certain Apple products.
As noted by PC World, the ITC decision is a reaction to a legal barrage Ericsson lobbed at Apple in February. The Swedish telecommunications giant lodged two ITC complaints and seven lawsuits with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, seeking both damages and injunctions against Apple product sales.
Apple sparked a legal battle in January by suing Ericsson over allegedly excessive royalty rates applied to previously licensed LTE technology. Shortly before Apple sued, the Cupertino company refused to re-sign a contract with Ericsson, saying the now expired licensing terms were excessive as patents-in-suit should not be considered standard essential.
"Ericsson seeks to exploit its patents to take the value of these cutting-edge Apple innovations, which resulted from years of hard work by Apple engineers and designers and billions of dollars of Apple research and development -- and which have nothing to do with Ericsson's patents," Apple's original complaint reads.
Ericsson said it offered Apple fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) pricing in hopes of striking a new deal, but exact terms were not revealed. Court filings show Ericsson sought a portion of overall device sales, while Apple argued a more equitable deal would charge on a per-component basis. Overall, Ericsson is asserting more than 41 separate patents against Apple relating to a variety of wireless standards and technologies.
Comments
We gotta love Washington... another foreign company getting our government -- the one that we pay for -- to go after Apple.
Anyone remember Samsung?
Anyone suing in the Eastern District of Texas knows they don't have a leg to stand on but hope they can buffalo the jurists into going against Apple. If they had sued anywhere else, I'd consider their claims but not now. I know Ericsson is a huge company but LTE is a standard and as such people who want to use this standard shouldn't be charged more than a reasonable amount and we know Ericsson is trying to gouge Apple simply because they are selling a ton of phones and they probably can't get any money out of Samsung so who's left to charge royalties?
If someone was using and not paying apple for reproducing the Lightning connector what would apple do?
What did apple do with Google when they thought that google copied an immaterial GUI?
... All I'm saying is that you gotta have some ability to think for yourself guys!
Not long ago .... we used to make tons of $$ selling this shit!
Good old days ...
What did apple do with Google when they thought that google copied an immaterial GUI?
That one statement earned you a one-way trip to my block list.
You guys are funny! ???? what is so hard to understand with a patent?
If someone was using and not paying apple for reproducing the Lightning connector what would apple do?
What did apple do with Google when they thought that google copied an immaterial GUI?
... All I'm saying is that you gotta have some ability to think for yourself guys!
Is the lightening connector covered by FRAND? No, so you can't compare it.
Get a clue before speaking.
They probably made a tonnes more money than Apple did from their iMac 3G when that phone was around 15 years ago.
But, why people like you seem to be ignorant to the fact that Apple would be nowhere with the iPhone if it wasn't for the work that Ericsson, Nokia, Motorola etc have put in for the past several decades, spending billions in R&D, countless hours by their engineers developing these radio technologies that we have now.
They probably made a tonnes more money than Apple did from their iMac 3G when that phone was around 15 years ago.
But, why people like you seem to be ignorant to the fact that Apple would be nowhere with the iPhone if it wasn't for the work that Ericsson, Nokia, Motorola etc have put in for the past several decades, spending billions in R&D, countless hours by their engineers developing these radio technologies that we have now.
That doesn't give them the right to charge people whatever they want. They lost that right when they offered their technologies under FRAND. Maybe they should have spent that money making a decent OS instead, then perhaps they wouldn't all be also-rans.
I'm not going to shed a tear for these companies. They had their chance and they blew it.
You guys are funny! ???? what is so hard to understand with a patent?
If someone was using and not paying apple for reproducing the Lightning connector what would apple do?
What did apple do with Google when they thought that google copied an immaterial GUI?
... All I'm saying is that you gotta have some ability to think for yourself guys!
And yet you dropped by to spout the same old dross folk have been hearing from the Android crowd for years.
So you're not actually thinking for yourself.
Who said it did? But fair is an abstract term, who says what fair is? But that doesn't stop the fact that Apple needs these companies.
Also, I'm not sure what you mean about also-rans? Ericsson is the largest cellular networking company in the world, it is one of the few companies that build the infrastructure Apple needs to sell iPhone.
But back to the post I replied to, why are you more interested in the FRAND part (which I didn't reference) than someone referencing a device Ericsson built 15 years ago?
[quote name="AppleInsider" url="/t/185483/itc-to-investigate-apple-on-allegations-of-ericsson-patent-infringement#post_2701118"
So Ericsson upped their licensing rates beyond the initially negotiated global figure for use in the first iPhone - for non standard essential patents, but now wants a per-unit (à la FRAND) payment?...and Apple thinks the expired terms were excessive.... or the new FRAND_ like terms are excessive? It's certainly not clear.
I thought that was the line being taken by Ericsson for their R&D?
Now I'm completely bamboozled. This sounds like like Ericsson is offering FRAND licensing for all it's IP, even the NON -essential bits, in the time-honoured fashion (unit %) favoured by the previous industry incumbents disrupted by the iPhone.
Apple has struggled with this argument in countless court cases - just what is the correct pricing model for Standard Essential IP, component cost or per device %. Indeed Apple confusingly uses both methods when licensing its own IP
I fear American courts are incapable of sorting this out.
Interesting to note how AI is missing some interesting bits. The Article doesn't mention this:
http://phys.org/news/2015-02-sweden-ericsson-sues-apple-patent.html#jCp
What on earth are Apple trying on here?:
Not up to industry standards? Are they claiming the patents are somehow invalid or are they complaining the patented tech is somehow of low quality - in which case - why use it?
Everyone should do some searching on this whole area with Ericsson. In just a couple of clicks I came up with articles stating that a number of major phone vendors signed cross patent agreements for LTE patents in 2014. Just the Samsung agreement added a potential $500m to the profits of Ericsson.
So before we all jump and down in disgust with Ericsson, perhaps, just perhaps they have a pretty legit case.
We all love Apple, but here it looks like they are behaving like a spoilt kid. I'd have thought by now Apple would behave better.
It's different. Ericsson made their patents part of the LTE standard and are trying to take a piece of every iPhone. There's a whole lot more value wrapped up in an iPhone than just LTE but they still want a piece of that.
If Apple patents something, they don't need to allow others to use it. They don't need to even offer licensing at all if they don't want to. But in this case, the FRAND patents MUST be licensed.
I think at issue here are these wireless has-beens (at least in the consumer space) are trying to tap into the only company making money and probably in a way that is not fair... the first letter in that acronym.
They probably aren't using the dumb technology, but Ericsson thinks they are so they are suing. So it will go to court and Apple will prove that the patents are invalid and Ericsson could be held holding a bag of hurt especially if they get the ITC to ban iPhone products. Good luck with that.
It's different. Ericsson made their patents part of the LTE standard and are trying to take a piece of every iPhone. There's a whole lot more value wrapped up in an iPhone than just LTE but they still want a piece of that.
If Apple patents something, they don't need to allow others to use it. They don't need to even offer licensing at all if they don't want to. But in this case, the FRAND patents MUST be licensed.
I think at issue here are these wireless has-beens (at least in the consumer space) are trying to tap into the only company making money and probably in a way that is not fair... the first letter in that acronym.
If the assertion that Ericsson wanted to have a court determine what is fair is accurate - what is wrong with that?
EDIT: Here's what Ericsson had to say. Note they mention the purpose of the Texas filing is for a court to decide if Ericsson's offer to Apple was fair. Of particular significance is the claim that Ericsson made "an offer for both parties to be bound by a decision on fair licensing terms by a United States federal court. Apple has refused..."
If true that seems like an eminently fair solution to me. What do you think?
http://www.ericsson.com/news/1897919
TMay is another member here who has taken the time to do some research on his own (too few seem to have done so before commenting) and I'd love to read his take on it as well.