Ericsson is suing fellow mobile phone manufacturer Sendo for alleged patent infringements. From ZDNet:.

Ericsson’s litigation, filed in the Netherlands, Britain and Germany,

accuses U.K.-based manufacturer Sendo of making handsets that

unlawfully use Global System for Mobile Communications technology that

Ericsson patented. GSM is the world’s most popular

cell phone standard. Sendo has admitted that it is manufacturing GSM

phones, but said it has been trying to negotiate a fair licensing deal

with Ericsson.

Mike Masnick of The Feature contends

that Ericsson’s act seems to be stifling innovation, inasmuch as Sendo

has expressed that it was in fact negotiating with Ericsson for a

licensing deal:

Standards bodies no longer revolve around the best technology and the

most likely to succeed in the market — but battles over whose patented

technology gets into the standard. It’s the same process that has more or less stalled out the UWB standards effort.

The

point of having a standard is to broaden the entire market. It opens up

many more opportunities for everyone. If companies really focused on

open standards and pushing out innovative products there would be more

money to go around. Instead, everyone gets less innovation at a slower

pace, a smaller overall pie and lots and lots of lawsuits. At least the

lawyers are happy.

The point of patents is to protect ideas, and hence encourage

innovation (with the assurance that one’s ideas are, in principle,

secured).  But the other side of the coin is that if ideas are too

over-protected by the patent owners, then other parties can no longer

innovate on them, fearing legal issues.

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