In the same week notable industry heavyweights banded together to snap up emerging tech patents to fend off future legal attacks, American wireless technology firm InterDigital has revealed it has agreed to drop its long-running tit-for-tat patent-based court shenanigans with mobile phone giant Nokia Corporation.
Nokia and InterDigital down weapons in 3G patent dispute. Image: DavidThePimpDaddy/Flickr.
However, while both parties have officially ceased trading legal blows in the United Kingdom regarding “whether certain patents owned by the parties are essential to the UMTS 3G mobile telephony standard,” the battle is yet to come to a similar conclusion in U.S. courts.
The two companies began locking horns on July 29 of 2005, when Espoo-based Nokia Corp. issued a complaint through the High Court in London requesting that 31 of InterDigital’s European patents be declared non-essential to the UMTS 3G mobile standard.
On December 19 of 2006, King of Prussia-based InterDigital countered by filing its own complaint with the High Court, similarly labelling certain Nokia patents as non-essential to the UMTS 3G standard.
It also filed with the International Trade Commission (ITC) in the United States the following August, accusing Nokia of exercising unfair trade practices via two of InterDigital’s 3G-related patents.
Financial details relevant to the agreement remain confidential between the parties, and ongoing litigation in the United States between Nokia and InterDigital continues.
While not directly related, major tech players such as Verizon Wireless, Google, Cisco Systems, Hewlett-Packard and Telefon AB L.M. have this week formed the Allied Security Trust, which will focus its efforts on the acquisition, non-exclusive self-licensing, and future sale of technology patents before small companies known as “patent trolls” are able to snatch them up.
These trolling companies are known for sitting on emerging technology patents without ever developing related devices to carry them, then using the patents as leverage to financially bleed larger companies who later create electronic devices built on similar technology.
Membership of the Trust apparently costs $250,000 per member, with each company expected to pour in a further $5 million for the ongoing purchase of technology patents.
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