AT&T Executive: Big LTE Patent Pool Will Be Industry’s ‘Best Thing Ever’ but Won’t End Court Wars
SAN FRANCISCO -- The LTE industry’s first large patent pool will be announced in the late summer or early fall, said Roger Ross, the president of the group, Via Licensing. More than 20 patent holders, including big names, have signed on, said Ross and Joe Alfred, the director of patent licensing and sales at AT&T, a member of the pool. Neither man would identify other members or discuss the number of patents involved or the royalty rates that the pool will ask for licenses.
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The pool is “the best thing that has happened in the wireless industry ever,” Alfred said at the NGMN Industry Conference late last week. He told us after speaking on a panel that beyond simplifying rights clearances and reducing “stacking” of royalties for the many patents needed atop one another, the pool will supply published rates. He said that will give would-be licensees leverage in one-on-one negotiation with other patent holders, reducing prices. The pool won’t be a panacea, Alfred said on the panel. There will never be a “one-stop shop” for patent licenses, he said. Alfred’s views were challenged during the often-contentious panel, including by Jari Vaario, Nokia’s standards and intellectual-property director.
"We will see much more litigation, much more of the patent wars we have seen,” Alfred said. He also warned, “We in the industry better deal with this before this gets the interest of some regulators and we get a solution we might not like.” After the panel, moderator Stefan Engel-Flechsig, the general counsel of the NGNM Alliance, the conference organizer, sounded a similar warning about the prospect of government rate-setting.
"It was very difficult to chose candidates for the panel who are not suing each other,” Engel-Flechsig had said in introducing the speakers. “We have not got it 100 percent.” Beside him on the dais at that point, Vaario hugged Sarah Guichard, Research In Motion’s patent development and standards strategy vice president. Nokia filed a patent infringement complaint against RIM last month in a blitz that included filings against HTC and Viewsonic in the U.S. and Germany. “If you're a lawyer, it’s a good time, because there’s plenty of work, unfortunately,” Guichard said. “If you're a manufacturer … it’s a scary time,” she said. Guichard said, “Our thicket has gotten so thick, it’s gotten very difficult to say, ‘Oh, design around'” a troublesome patent. At least the courts are “starting to come out with decisions that will help the industry,” Guichard said, pointing to the eBay ruling about injunctions.
"NGMN” is short for “next-generation mobile networks.” The alliance, headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany, is an international LTE technology forum with 18 wireless-carrier members including AT&T; T-Mobile’s owner, Deutsche Telekom; and Vodafone, a co-owner of Verizon Wireless.