Leading mobile WiMAX vendors pool patents

Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 10 June 2008 06:15

Business IT - Technology

Research director, Stuart Carlaw, said: "The diversification of IP holdings in 4G technologies and especially WiMAX is something of a double-edged sword. On one hand, the number of companies with vested interests in the technologies' success is far greater; on the other hand, the number of companies likely to succeed in any market is apt to be far smaller than the number of companies that hold IP. The only vehicle left for them to recoup R&D dollars is to look for revenue from licenses.

"Considering that Ericsson and Qualcomm are not supporters of WiMAX and hold IP that is highly relevant to all 4G technologies, it is most likely that there will be little difference in the royalty rates experienced in all 4G standards. More importantly, 4G technologies are likely to see similar royalty rates to those for 3G devices."

The OPA's backers say they expect to secure participation of an additional six to nine investor companies to encompass the WiMAX value-chain and broad geographic representation. Each investor company will have a seat on the OPA board. The OPA will have dedicated staff directed by and accountable to its board.

Earlier this year seven major global telco vendors - Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, NEC, NextWave Wireless, Nokia, Nokia Siemens Networks and Sony Ericsson - signed up to an agreement to limit intellectual property costs in LTE and avoid the costly and protracted IPR litigation that had bedevilled other technologies in recent years.

They commited to "a framework for establishing predictable and more transparent maximum aggregate costs for licensing intellectual property rights that relate to 3GPP Long Term Evolution and Service Architecture Evolution standards (LTE/SAE)." They invited other holders of relevant IPR to join this initiative - one conspicuous by its absence from this initial partnership is Qualcomm.

The framework is based on the principle of fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) licensing terms for essential patents. This means that the companies agree, subject to reciprocity, to reasonable, maximum aggregate royalty rates based on the value added by the technology in the end product and to flexible licensing arrangements according to the licensors' proportional share of all standard essential IPR for the relevant product category.