InterDigital has announced that it has established new licensing agreements with Acer and Pantech. The latter companies have agreed to pay InterDigital royalties for several new products, such as tablets, that were said to be excluded from original agreements related to 2G, 3G and 4G technologies.
InterDigital provided mixed news to the mobile industry as it decided against exploring a possible sale. The company had decided against possible offers following a review and would instead focus on "patent sales and licensing partnerships." It declined to say who it was talking to.
(Update: clarification on Google role) InterDigital's attempt at a sell-off is getting close and attracting key Android phone makers, insiders claimed Friday. HTC and returning candidate Samsung are considering initial bids when they start in an auction now said to be starting in two weeks. Ericsson and Intel were also involved in the Bloomberg version of events.
The US Senate passed in an 89 to 9 vote a bill originally put through Congress that could theoretically curb patent troll lawsuits. It will let the USPTO get more control over its fees and reduce the instances of its budget being diverted somewhere else. The bi-partisan vote was made with the hope of recruiting more examiners and modernizing equipment, both to speed up the process and to prevent overly broad patents from slipping through and being used to sue for dubious reasons.
Apple in a response to Samsung's countersuit late Monday accused the Korean company of abusing its stance on patent licensing terms. The firm accused Samsung of "serial standard-setting abuses" by illegally getting monopoly status in fields where its patents are billed as essential to the technology and promptly 'tricking' standards bodies by hiding its requirements around Fair, Reasonable, and Non-Discriminatory (FRAND) licensing terms, letting it abuse its claims against others. Apple contended that Samsung's lawsuit was an "anticompetitive ambush" and was exploiting this to try and make Apple drop its self-proclaimed legitimate anti-copying complaints.
Samsung is reportedly considering placing a bid to acquire InterDigital patents, unnamed sources have told Bloomberg. If the report is accurate, Samsung may have to compete against Apple and Google. All three companies are reportedly eyeing InterDigital's patent portfolio.
InterDigital momentarily overlooked its plans to sell itself on Tuesday and filed a complaint at the International Trade Commission against Huawei, Nokia, and ZTE. It claims that any devices the trio makes that use either WCDMA (HSPA) or CDMA2000 for 3G violates at least one of seven patents. Phones, tablets, portable routers, and other devices all qualify, the company said.
Apple and Google are considering exploiting InterDigital's attempt to sell itself off to get the upper hand in their mobile patent disputes, a source divulged Wednesday. The two are candidates along with others to buy the company and get access to its 1,300 phone-related patents. It wasn't evident from Bloomberg sources how serious either side was or which if any was in the lead to win.
The US International Trade Commission (ITC) tonight exonerated Nokia by ending an investigation into claims by InterDigital that Nokia had violated its patents. The government agency has confirmed an initial decision by an Administrative Law Judge that said Nokia's use of UMTS-based 3G doesn't violate four InterDigital technology patents. Additionally, the ITC has rejected the portion of the judge's ruling that had originally found the patents valid and has denied InterDigital a chance to claim further patent violations.
Right before the US International Trade Commission was to make a decision on recommending to ban import of Samsung's high-speed data cellphones such as the Blackjack II and Instinct, InterDigital and Samsung have settled an ongoing patent infringement lawsuit. A Tuesday WSJ report says the two companies came to an agreement on Monday. InterDigital received $1.5 billion dollars from the likes of Apple and RIM largely from royalties from the use of patented high-speed broadband technology called 3G in their iPhone and Blackberry handsets, respectively. The two biggest cellphone makers, however, Nokia and Samsung, did not pay InterDigital and were consequently sued.
