

The Smart Phone Patent Wars - chan
http://blogs.burnsidedigital.com/2012/09/the-smart-phone-patent-wars/

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chan
The FRAND licensing issues have been in court for sometime.
[http://www.cio.com.au/article/431373/samsung_apple_refused_n...](http://www.cio.com.au/article/431373/samsung_apple_refused_negotiate_license_3g_patents/#closeme)

[http://www.fosspatents.com/2012/09/korean-regulator-
investig...](http://www.fosspatents.com/2012/09/korean-regulator-investigates-
apples.html)

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anuraj
Standard based patents (as in LTE) are subject to compulsory licensing under
FRAND terms. Not all the patents listed are that obvious or easy. For example
take the case of concealed antenna; it took several years of research and
millions of dollars to develop the technology.

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drcube
What counts as a standard? Why isn't "swipe to unlock" considered a smart
phone standard? What's the difference?

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anuraj
Standards are set by international bodies (like ETSI) using a specified
process which these companies are participants of. As part of the procedure,
companies legally authorize the use of their essential patents to be part of a
standard. Once this happens, the standard implementors have to pay a specified
royalty (usually on a per device basis) from which individual compaies owning
the patents get their share based on contribution.

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josephlord
Yes the standards bodies require FRAND licensing conditions. And if the
companies did not follow strict procedures (including but not limited to FRAND
licensing) to ensure fairness to companies outside the group they would very
much be at risk being an illegal anti-competitive group of companies. In the
EU at least the punishment for competition law breaches can be up to 10% of
global group turnover.

However for the same competition law reasons the standards body cannot fix the
price of the patent licenses but must leave it to the individual companies to
determine what is FRAND. In some cases a 3rd party licensing agency (e.g. MPEG
LA) offers to manage the licensing for many companies and operates in the way
you describe but even members of the standards group do not have to join which
is OK so long as the prices they charge are FRAND.

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josephlord
Article misses the fact that the standards essential ones should be committed
to FRAND licensing so while they need to be paid for it shouldn't be possible
to deny access to them.

