Patent issues involving the Ericsson-Sendo dispute

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.