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Ericsson Seeks US Import Ban On Samsung Products
angry tapir writes "Just a few days after Ericsson filed several patent-infringement lawsuits against Samsung in the U.S., the Swedish mobile phone company also filed a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), asking for an import ban of a wide range of Samsung products, including the Galaxy S III and the Galaxy Note. Ericsson alleges that Samsung violates Section 337 of the Tariff Act by importing patent-infringing products into the U.S and selling them."
If you can't beat 'em with a better product, litigate 'em.
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How dare anyone out there sue Samsung, after all she's been through! She loves her Galaxy! She went through a lawsuit! She had many business partnerships, her customers turned out to be (sob) litigious and now she's going through an appeal.All you companies care about is patents and making money off of her! SHE'S A CORPORATION! What you don't realize is Samsung is making all this money and all you do is file a bunch of crap against her.
... is sucked up by lawyers and judicial staff by way of my handset manufacturer.
On any given day you can replace "handset manufacturer" with "OS vendor", "service provider", "app developer", etc.
This system stinks and it doesn't function in my interests as a consumer (or an engineer, for that matter).
"Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
This is a company that made something like $26 billion in revenue last year. They're still a first-tier vendor for back-end equipment.
Maybe we should make some law that says a person's patents don't count, provided they stop making products that attract the attention of shallow cellphone trend blogs.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
No, that would be like trying to install modern plumbing in an outhouse. It's much better to burn down the old outhouse, and start again, with a new foundation.
Technology has evolved so much that the current system just doesn't fit and function in a beneficial way for all.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
What comments like yours fail to consider is that Ericsson doesn't even have a horse in the handset race any more, which is a very important fact. They sold off their share of the Sony-Ericsson joint venture to Sony about a year ago (though the deal closed early this year) and have been doing just fine ever since, posting billions in profit with their bread-and-butter telecommunications equipment. They're out of the handset market and onto other things that are more focused on engineering and business-facing products than design and consumer-facing products.
As a result, they have nothing to gain by seeing Samsung fail, and they're doing just fine on their own, so this isn't a company who got beat turning patent troll. This is a case of a company outside the handset market who has legitimate patents based on actual engineering innovations having their patents used without proper licensing. There's nothing wrong in demanding that the company using your patents pay the licensing fees that are due, and why people ascribe them ulterior motives when they have nothing to gain is beyond me.
Ericsson is part of an alliance with Microsoft, Apple, and others who see Linux and Android as a threat to their business model.
http://www.microsoft.com/enterprise/partners/ericsson.aspx#fbid=LZQES70oV98
http://www.engadget.com/2011/07/01/rim-apple-sony-microsoft-consortium-snags-nortel-wireless-pat/
The whole point to to keep the litigation going as long as possible.
There's nothing wrong in demanding that the company using your patents pay the licensing fees that are due, and why people ascribe them ulterior motives when they have nothing to gain is beyond me.
Ascribing ulterior motives? May be, that's because they're playing hard ball and asking for an immediate import ban just before Christmas.
IANAL, but since these are patents that Samsung used to license, and that license agreement has lapsed, it might not need a court ruling to prove that the products do infringe upon these patents.
Ericsson no longer makes phones. They're a highly profitable company building cell phone networks with lots of patents in the wireless tech-sphere. Samsung and Ericsson are not, in other words, direct competitors and this is not a case of competing through the courts. Key part from TFA:
"The suits were filed because Ericsson said it could not reach a license agreement for its patents with Samsung on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms after two years of negotiations. Samsung was asked to pay the same rate as its competitors, but Samsung refused, according to Ericsson.
"Samsung had licensed Ericsson patents before. However, according to a statement released by Samsung last week, Ericsson demanded 'significantly higher royalty rates for the same patent portfolio,' adding that it planned to 'take all necessary legal measures to protect against Ericsson's excessive claims.'"
This is purely about the money. The two companies stopped negotiating, Samsung is betting that going to court (they must have known a lawsuit was coming) will end up better for them than paying Ericsson's fee.
From TFA:
The suits were filed because Ericsson said it could not reach a license agreement for its patents with Samsung on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms after two years of negotiations. Samsung was asked to pay the same rate as its competitors, but Samsung refused, according to Ericsson.
Samsung had licensed Ericsson patents before. However, according to a statement released by Samsung last week, Ericsson demanded "significantly higher royalty rates for the same patent portfolio," adding that it planned to "take all necessary legal measures to protect against Ericsson's excessive claims."
Samsung used to license these patents, then stopped paying. They knew a lawsuit was coming, and decided it was a fight worth taking. I have no clue whether the fees requested by Ericsson are unreasonable or not - but there's no need for conspiracy theories or ulterior motives on this one.