Samsung, Ericsson settle lawsuits, will share patents
Samsung, Ericsson settle lawsuits, will share patents
Samsung Electronics Co., the world's third-biggest maker of mobile phones, and smaller rival Ericsson AB agreed to share wireless-communication technology and end all patent lawsuits against each other.
Samsung and Ericsson, the world's biggest maker of mobile- phone networks, agreed today to cross-license second- and third- generation wireless technology, Samsung said in a regulatory filing. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
Ericsson sued Samsung in July 2006, accusing it of violating 11 patents including one on a way to reduce mobile-phone power usage and another on amplifying radio frequency. Stockholm-based Ericsson also sued Samsung five months earlier in Marshall, Texas, seeking a ruling that Samsung infringed its patents and that phones made by its Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications Ltd. joint venture with Sony Corp. don't infringe Samsung patents.
Other patent suits were pending in Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, according to Ericsson spokeswoman Ase Lindskog. A case was also pending before the U.S. International Trade Commission in Washington, an agency with the authority to ban imports of products found to violate U.S. patents.
Sony Ericsson is the world's fourth-biggest maker of mobile phones, trailing Samsung, Nokia Oyj and Motorola Inc.
Ericsson's American depositary receipts, each representing 10 series B shares, rose 70 cents to $42.26, a 52-week high, in Nasdaq Stock Market composite trading. (Bloomberg)
<< The Korea Herald, 11 July, 2007 >>
