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For the third time in two weeks there is a new and significant standards case. This time around, Nokia is claiming that Qualcomm is violating its obligation to provide a license under "fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory" (FRAND) terms to patents that would be infringed under an ETSI standard. The Nokia suit is a defensive move, because Qualcomm is seeking injunctions to prevent Nokia from selling its new mobile handsets unless Nokia knuckles under to Qualcomm's license terms.
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Nokia's suit was filed last week in the Delaware Court of the Chancery, in hopes of outflanking the suits that Qualcomm has already brought in US and UK courts, and before the US International Trade Commission. The mobile handset maker claims that Qualcomm engaged in behavior similar to that of Rambus, Inc., by revealing its patents late, and then charging unfair rates. Nokia is asking the Delaware court to define exactly what FRAND terms means - something that has been rarely done.
Like the FTC's unanimous decision to punish Rambus, and Foundry Network's suit alleging French telecommunications giant Alcatel of the same type of abuse it found Rambus had committed (both announced only two weeks ago), this new suit emphasizes how deficient reliance on "FRAND" (or RAND, the acronym used by most US standard setting organizations) licensing commitments can be. These suits can only add momentum and credibility to the recent calls for early ("ex ante") disclosure of patent claims in the standards development process, as has been advocated by major technology companies such as IBM, Sun Microsystems, Hewlett-Packard, Cisco and Apple. ETSI, in Europe, and IEEE, in the US, are both debating such changes. Full Story |
