Ericsson confirms first LTE license agreements
Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC), a leading pioneer of LTE technology, confirms it has signed license agreements for LTE essential patents. Ericsson is a strong advocate for reasonable aggregated royalties and holds the industry's strongest LTE patent portfolio. Ericsson is now taking the lead in establishing an industry practice to promote healthy market growth. This builds on Ericsson's present global licensing program for GSM/WCDMA, now composed of more than 80 agreements and generating significant revenue.
Building on extensive experience in GSM and WCDMA, Ericsson has been driving the development of next-generation mobile technology - 4G/LTE - ever since its OFDM research in the early 1990s. Already today, at the dawn of the technology, Ericsson possesses a substantial number of standard essential patents that are key to developing 4G/LTE products.
Championing industry practice on FRAND (Fair, Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory) licensing, Ericsson makes its technology available to others. Consequently, licensing arrangements will be made according to Ericsson's proportional share of the standard IPR that relates to the relevant product category. Ericsson likewise honors the same industry practice of ensuring a maximum cumulative rate on LTE technology not exceeding a single-digit rate. This is achieved through bilateral negotiations undertaken in good-faith.
Kasim Alfalahi, Vice President and Head of IPR Licensing and Patent Portfolio at Ericsson says: "This is an important milestone for us to demonstrate our LTE leadership. We aim to strike a balance between providing value for our customers and earning a fair return on our significant R&D investments when other parties have the opportunity to benefit from them."
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Ericsson is the world's leading provider of technology and services to telecom operators. Ericsson is the leader in 2G, 3G and 4G mobile technologies, and provides support for networks with over 1 billion subscribers and has a leading position in managed services. The company's portfolio comprises of mobile and fixed network infrastructure, telecom services, software, broadband and multimedia solutions for operators, enterprises and the media industry. The Sony Ericsson and ST-Ericsson joint ventures provide consumers with feature-rich personal mobile devices.
Ericsson is advancing its vision of "to be the prime driver in an all-communicating world" through innovation, technology, and sustainable business solutions. Working in 175 countries, more than 75,000 employees generated revenue of SEK 209 billion (USD 32.2 billion) in 2008. Founded in 1876 with the headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden, Ericsson is listed on OMX NASDAQ, Stockholm and NASDAQ New York.
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