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On Tuesday, Swedish telecoms equipment company Ericsson said that it has sued Indian handset maker Micromax and its distributor for infringing wireless patent rights.
Though the action comes after earlier reports of Micromax refusing to sign license agreements on several wireless technologies, in a statement, the Indian company said it was “committed to negotiating a FRAND licence with Ericsson as has Ericsson undertaken to providing a Fair, Reasonable and Non-discriminatory licence to Micromax.”
Ericsson spokeswoman Karin Hallstan admitted, “It is once again about FRAND (fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms).”
Micromax claims to be the 12th largest handset manufacturer in the world and that it sells about 1.3 million handsets each month across Asia, Middle East and Brazil. On the other hand, Ericsson doesn’t produce handsets any more after having sold off its business to Sony Ericsson in 2011.
Patent revenues constitute an important part of the Swedish company with its patent revenues grossing 6.6 billion Swedish crowns in 2012, a revenue which has been steadily growing over the past few years after the company taking an aggressive policy for pursuing its patent rights. In 2010, patent revenues of Ericsson was just 4.6 billion crowns, and by 2011, it had come up to 6.2 billion crowns.
Last year, Ericsson sued Samsung for failing to sign licence agreements and Samsung made a counterclaim this year.
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Ericsson, which was one of the earliest players in the mobile handset market and related technologies, has a more than 30,000 patent portfolio covering a major portion of the technology supporting mobile usage in the world.
The FRAND (fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory) terms were created for certain patents by the industry to ensure that essential standard patents are allowed under FRAND terms to rivals and that individual companies cannot hamstring the growth and progress of mobile technology.
