Ericsson files patent infringement suit against Samsung

Ericsson, the Swedish telecom network equipment maker, on Tuesday announced that it filed suit [press release, PDF] against Samsung [corporate website] in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas [official website] for patent infringement.
Disagreement between the companies for the renewal of licenses for telecommunications patents.

They are trying to negotiate with each other from past two years but now Samsung disagree to sign the license agreement on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms.

Ericsson said it has patented hundreds of inventions that are considered standards essential to the communications industry, including patents relating to GSM, GPRS, EDGE, WCDMA, LTE and 802.11. It claims to have spent $5 billion on research and development in 2011 alone. Reuters reports Ericsson’s IP right net revenues amounted to 6.2 billion Swedish crowns ($938 million) last year.

Ericsson claimed that legal measures are unavoidable given the lack of mutual agreement despite its honest efforts “to amicably come to an agreement with Samsung and to sign a license agreement on FRAND terms.” On the other hand, Samsung alleged that Ericsson demanded excessively high royalty rates for the renewal of the license agreement. Samsung had entered into a license agreement with Ericsson in 2001 which was renewed in 2007.

Samsung was already involved in such patent infringement lawsuits,specially with Apple,on basis of software patent.