Author: Yellow Warbler
On January 17, US time, Sweden's Ericsson Company formally sued Apple in the Western District Court of Texas, a total of two cases, involving 12 patents.
Ericsson indictment
This is after Ericsson filed a FRAND lawsuit against Apple in federal court in Texas on October 4 last year, and the two companies officially started a "dialogue" with "patents". It also means that the two companies still failed to reach an agreement on renewal when the last license agreement expired, so it is expected that Ericsson will launch a patent lawsuit.
In fact, the two companies' ideas and disagreements over SEP licensing are too big for now, especially apple in 2018, which exchanged $4.5 billion for a five-year gap period after ending a years-long patent lawsuit with Qualcomm. This was followed by the "Statement on the Fair, Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory FRAND License of SEP" in November 2019, which is a step further than the three-point principle that Apple expressed to ETSI in 2011, and is very clear that Apple's position in the global industry chain represents the strongest declaration issued to rights holders by the implementer (in fact, only on its own) behalf.
Apple itself discloses the FRAND principles based on SEP
The provisions in this "Statement" are impossible for Ericsson and other rights holders to easily agree to. This has buried the "foreshadowing" that Apple will definitely launch a real contest with the camp of rights holders, not only for the mobile terminal market, but perhaps for the upcoming Apple car, which is a market that wants to be more space-oriented, and to play a new set of SEP/FRAND rules for itself.
This time, the first expired license agreement between Apple and Ericsson has also made Ericsson the first object for Apple to start a big counterattack, of course, the ultimate boss in the future is undoubtedly Qualcomm, but this hard battle is estimated to start in 2023, before taking Ericsson to practice, it is not necessarily a bad thing.
Historically, apple and Ericsson have reached two licensing agreements.
For the first time, after Apple launched the revolutionary smartphone iPhone in 2007, the two companies signed a patent licensing agreement in 2008, and Apple was granted permission to use Ericsson's basic 2G and 3G patents. The second time, in 2015, Apple and Ericsson underwent another global cross-licensing, with agreements covering standard-essential patents for 2G, 3G and 4G. Ericsson's formal lawsuit against Apple also means that the date of the last license agreement has arrived.
In one of the lawsuits, Case 6:22-cv-61, Ericsson had 8 U.S. patents: US7,151,430, US7,957,770, US8,472,999, US8,792,454, US9,509,273, US9,705,400, US9,853,621, US10,880,794. These patent areas are more diverse and complex, such as non-SEP patents.
Among them, patent No. 770, which relates to touch technology of mobile terminals, originally belonged to LG and was transferred to Ericsson in 2014. Patent No. 999, which relates to dual standby technology, was invented Chinese Zhang Xuejun and was laid out only in China and the United States, and its Chinese patentee is shown as NXP. Patent No. 454 relates to WAN and LAN roaming technology, originally owned by Toshiba Institute of American Research, which was only transferred to Ericsson on February 17, 2021. The rest of the patents are owned by Ericsson, two of which are not of Chinese ethnicity, and the rest are of Chinese ethnicity.
In another lawsuit, Case 6:22-cv-60, Ericsson had four U.S. patents: US8,102,805, US9,532,355, US10,425,817, US11,139,872. The patents Ericsson said it had already made a statement in the 3GPP (ETSI), meaning they were SEP patents. These patents were developed by Ericsson itself.
Since the patent litigation has begun, Ericsson's ultimate goal is likely to be to ask the court or ITC to issue an injunction against Apple, but judging from the controversial Ministry of Justice's solicitation of draft SEP remedies for 2021, the differences between rights holders and implementers are very large, and it is uncertain whether they can form a favorable side for the camp of rights holders such as Ericsson in the future.
Even going back to a decade ago, when Apple and Samsung fought a war, although the ITC finally ruled that Apple infringed Samsung's 3G/4G SEP patent and issued a general exclusion order, Obama's veto saved Apple once. Whether history will repeat itself or create a new script depends on how Apple wants to perform in the future, in fact, in this fight, Ericsson is more like it has been completely reduced to a supporting role.
Therefore, whether Apple can play a new rule on behalf of the implementer camp, or close it when it is good, may become a major event in the global SEP field this year.