Canadian patent holder Wi-Lan has sued Apple, Hewlett-Packard, and more for allegedly violating Wi-Lan owned technologies used in CDMA, HSPA, Wi-Fi, and LTE networks.
Other defendants in the case, filed Friday in the notorious patent haven of Eastern Texas, include HTC, Kyocera, Novatel Wireless, Alcatel-Lucent, Dell, and Sierra Wireless. If Wi-Lan wins, the defendants will be forced to pay a royalty to Wi-Lan for virtually every connected device it makes.
The two patents in question are the "802 patent" related to CDMA and HSPA, and the "222 patent" related to Wi-Fi and LTE.
Wi-Lan has litigated on the 802 and 222 patents numerous times before, most recently in February against HTC and Exedea. And in 2007, Wi-Lan used the patents to sue Acer and Westell Technologies; both cases are still trapped in counter motions.
Wi-Lan was founded in 1992 as a wireless company, but in 2006 shifted its business model to buying and licensing a portfolio of wireless patents. This has helped it grow from earning $2 million in 2006 to $50.7 million in 2010. This year is looking even brighter for the company's bottom line, having renewed a lucrative licensing agreement in February with Cisco. Wi-Lan boasts a portfolio of 1,400 patents and collects royalties from 250 companies.
On August 17, it made a C$480 million all-cash offer for rival patent owner Mosaid Technologies.
In the first half of the year, Wi-Lan said it has spent $13.6 million on patent litigation, up 31 percent from the year before.
Google just paid $12.5 billion for Motorola Mobility in part to get its hands on Motorola's portfolio of more than 17,000 patents. Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt argued this week that the deal wasn't all about patents, but it was a major consideration.
In recent years, mobile patents have been used opportunistically by mobile companies and pejoratively named "patent trolls." This week OpenWave sued Apple and RIM for patent infringement, and in recent months HTC sued Apple, Rovi sued Hulu, Apple sued Samsung, and Samsung fought back with a countersuit.Last year alone, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) issued 107,792 patents, and the top five organizations that had the most patents approved were all in tech: IBM (5,866); Samsung (4,518); Microsoft (3,086); Canon (2,551); and Panasonic (2,443). IBM has actually been the top patent awardee for the past 17 years, but as the infographic notes, its portfolio is not considered to be the most valuable. That honor goes to Microsoft.
How did patent wars ever start? See Infographic: Who Will Win the Patent Wars? for more. Also check out What If Android Lost the Patent War?
Source:http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2392383,00.asp?kc=PCRSS05039TX1K0000760
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