Acer joins WiMAX IPR alliance, Via bids for LTE patent pool
Published: 11 May, 2009
Not only are we facing rising numbers of apps stores and smartphone operating systems, but apparently even patent pools are proliferating. There are new developments in IPR approaches for both 4G platforms this week, with the Open Patent Alliance (OPA), focused on WiMAX, adding a key new member, Acer; and patent pool major Via Licensing seeking to extend its role to LTE.
The OPA will announce today that Taiwanese PC giant Acer will join its ranks. This is important because it brings a tier one notebook maker to the effort, representing the needs of this sector and emphasizing the significance of notebooks, netbooks and the norms of the PC ecosystem, to WiMAX' competitive positioning. The explosion of mobile broadband usage via these devices is a key driver for WiMAX uptake, and last week Dell announced WiMAX upgrade options for several notebooks, in conjunction with Clearwire.
The OPA was formed last June, spearheaded by Alcatel-Lucent, Alvarion, Cisco, Clearwire, Huawei, Intel, and Samsung. Its president Yung Hahn said in a statement: "Taking a collaborative approach to IPR issues, the OPA can continue to foster greater WiMAX innovation, collaboration and competition." The body will now expand its reach "to include non-traditional companies like Acer".
Meanwhile, a group of LTE vendors got together a year ago to create a common licensing framework for LTE, but others prefer a patent pool administered by a third party, and Via Licensing has stepped up to the plate. Via already manages patent pools for some key standards, such as MPEG2, Wi-Fi and NFC, and signed a deal last December with the IEEE to administer pools for that body's key standards. It says it now wants to work with the LTE industry to create a licensing program that "balances the needs of licensors and licensees and enables the industry to more effectively develop and deliver products and services based on LTE."
Its experience in pools and its independent stance could give it a better chance than some efforts to bringing the industry together, but of course a pool only works if the largest IPR holders and licensees all support it. It will be essential that Via's work is united with that of the unnamed group formed last year by Nokia, Nokia Siemens Networks, Alcatel-Lucent, Sony Ericsson, NEC and Ericsson, which is working on a framework for "fair and reasonable" licensing terms. However, significant vendors remain outside, most ominously Qualcomm, but also Motorola, InterDigital, Nortel, Samsung, most chipmakers and the Chinese majors, all of which may well have significant IPR claims.
The problem with LTE is that the main reason to join a patent pool is usually to accelerate or push through a standard, removing the uncertainty factor of 'patent bill shock', but the 4G platform has gone well beyond that stage, and some IPR holders may be keen to hang on and try to hold vendors to ransom once their products are launched - a practise some bodies like ETSI are trying to outlaw.
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