Back in December of last year, Apple ended up filing a lawsuit against Ericsson as it accused it of unfair as well as strong arm tactics as far as cellular patent licensing negotiations are concerned. In retaliation to this then, Ericsson actually ended up filing a patent infringement litigation against Apple and is now set to target its Brazilian redistributor.
Just last year, Apple actually had some of its Standards Essential Patents (SEPs) is expire, which happened to have been owned by Ericsson. The company didn’t exactly renew them and actually tried to negotiate with Ericsson for a better deal. However, talks then fell apart and Ericsson took action by filing a lawsuit as it accused Apple of bad faith negotiations as well as patent infringement. Apple then ended up responding to this with a lawsuit of its own as it accused Ericsson of unfair and strong arm tactics in cellular patent licensing negotiations.
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For those of you who are unaware, Standards-Essential Patent (SEPs) are in fact patents without which, in case of smartphones, a manufacturer doesn’t have the right to make a device. There indeed is a global agreement that licenses for these patents must in fact be available fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms.
Ever since then, the legal battle with respect to the patents has continued to escalate further as Ericsson is now going after Apple’s Brazilian wholesaler in order to make pressure on Apple as it looks to cut off their Brazilian supply chain.
This tactic is pretty much the same which was used by Apple back in 2012 as part of the brand’s very own patent infringement claims that were there against Samsung. All in all, the battle between the two giants is getting ugly, and only time will tell as to who ends up on top.
