#title: Ericsson and Software Patents #descr: A report by the Swedish telecommunication giant Ericsson estimated in 2001 that %(q:Like other companies operating in the telecommunications industry, because our products comprise complex technology, we experience litigation regarding patent and other intellectual property rights. Third parties have asserted, and in the future may assert, claims against us alleging that we infringe their intellectual property rights. If we do not succeed in any such litigation, we could be required to expend significant resources to pay damages, develop non-infringing technology or to obtain licenses to the technology which is the subject of such litigation. However, we cannot be certain that any such licenses, if available at all, will be available to us on commercially reasonable terms.) Ericsson is currently (2003) facing software patent infringment charges in a US court where the plaintiff is demanding 1 billion USD in damages. The patent activities of the swedish telecommunication giant Ericsson are cited in MEP Arlene McCarthy's software patentability directive proposal as a reason for legalising software patents in Europe. Here we take a close look at the software patent applications of Ericsson at the European Patent Office. Although Ericsson's patent portfolio is gigantic, we cannot find the %(q:1000 patents per year) which McCarthy talks about, nor does it seem likely that Ericsson's R&D is dependent on the availability of software patents. The Ericsson paper itself writes: %(q:We rely upon a combination of trade secrets, confidentiality policies, nondisclosure and other contractual arrangements, and patent, copyright and trademark laws to protect our intellectual property rights...). In order to defent itself against litigation threats and earn itself the freedom to develop products, Ericsson it is patenting masses of ideas and concepts which any normal engineer or software developper would hardly consider as %(q:inventions). #epat: Ericsson Software Patents at the European Patent Office (EPO) #snt: Ericsson 2001: Turning Ideas into Profit #sbs: An advertising pamphlet which portrays Ericsson as a great inventor and its patents as reflections of great R&D efforts by showing a laboratory worker experimenting with computer hardware. The pamphlet acknowledges that there is a conflict between patents a open standards and praises Ericsson for its ability to reconcile both. Ericsson's patents around the Bluetooth standards are mentioned as the greatest success of Ericsson's patent policy. #oIt: Ericsson 2001: Legal Insecurity due to Patents #WaW: Page 12 of the SEC document, in which Ericsson assesses various risks, reads: %(q:Like other companies operating in the telecommunications industry, because our products comprise complex technology, we experience litigation regarding patent and other intellectual property rights. Third parties have asserted, and in the future may assert, claims against us alleging that we infringe their intellectual property rights. If we do not succeed in any such litigation, we could be required to expend significant resources to pay damages, develop non-infringing technology or to obtain licenses to the technology which is the subject of such litigation. However, we cannot be certain that any such licenses, if available at all, will be available to us on commercially reasonable terms.) As of 2003, Ericsson is facing litigation for infringing tdma patents of Interdigital. Interdigital wants 1 billion, so Ericssons risk assessment in 2001 was probably correct. Ericsson also writes that patents are only one of many means of securing a return on investments: %(q:We rely upon a combination of trade secrets, confidentiality policies, nondisclosure and other contractual arrangements, and patent, copyright and trademark laws to protect our intellectual property rights...) #ins: Ericsson Website # Local Variables: ; # coding: utf-8 ; # srcfile: /usr/share/emacs/site-lisp/phm/sys/mlht.el ; # mailto: mlhtimport@ffii.org ; # login: phm ; # passwd: YYYYY ; # feature: swpatdir ; # dok: swpatericsson ; # txtlang: en ; # multlin: t ; # End: ;