UN telecoms authority wants an end to patent cases

According to the International Telecommunication Union, an organization of the United Nations, the protracted patent disputes between telecom companies must come to an end. The ITU is concerned that this will reduce innovation.

The ITU has a meeting set up in which telecom companies were invited on October 10 to discuss the current situation in the patent field. The UN organization mainly wants to talk about patents that describe techniques for standards, citing 3g and jpeg photos as examples. It is unclear which parties have been invited, but it is likely that these are Apple, Microsoft, Motorola, Samsung, HTC and possibly Google: these companies have recently been in the news due to lawsuits over patent infringement.

The so-called frand patents are also discussed during the meeting. These are patents that have been determined to be essential to the industry, requiring the patent holder to license them at a reasonable price to companies that request them. Because not all manufacturers agree on what a reasonable price is, such patents still cause legal haggling.

Many lawsuits have been filed in recent years, in which the telecom industry mainly concerns Android manufacturers, in collaboration with Google, against Apple and Microsoft. This has already resulted in a sales ban a number of times, with smartphones in particular being banned by the court. The late Apple CEO Steve Jobs previously called Android a ‘stolen product’ that he wanted to stop at all costs. Microsoft is after royalties from Android manufacturers and has now concluded agreements with many companies for the use of its patents.