Mikey Campbell
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.
Andrew Orr
Amber Neely
William Gallagher
Christine McKee
AppleInsider Staff
49 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?
[quote name="rob53" url="/t/185483/itc-to-investigate-apple-on-allegations-of-ericsson-patent-infringement#post_2701156"]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... [/quote] When Apple's Rockstar Consortium sued Google guess where they filed?
Ridiculous. They wanted a share of the purchase price of every iPhone and iPad sold? Wow!! Unbelievable. The LTE chips aren't even made by them. Little bank trying to take big bank. Lol.
[quote name="Pujones1" url="/t/185483/itc-to-investigate-apple-on-allegations-of-ericsson-patent-infringement#post_2701185"]Ridiculous. They wanted a share of the purchase price of every iPhone and iPad sold? Wow!! Unbelievable. The LTE chips aren't even made by them. Little bank trying to take big bank. Lol.[/quote]A quibble but it's not on the purchase price it's on the wholesale cost to Apple, ie the build cost. It's also a very common royalty basis. Apple pays royalties to other IP holders based on the build costs too. Fair? IMO perhaps not in some cases but it's an industry standard that all the manufacturers deal with.