Ericsson said that it is reorganising its licensing and patent development department in an effort to earn more revenue from its patent trove. As part of the reorganisation, Ericsson's chief intellectual property officer, Kasim Alfalahi, will now report directly to CEO Hans Vestberg.
Ericsson has set a target of increasing its IPR revenues above the €518 million (£429 million) in net revenue generated in 2010. The Swedish vendor claims to have the industry's strongest wireless IPR portfolio, comprising 27,000 granted patents in wireless access technologies and other areas of ICT.
The company has also just gained access to further IPR in the area of operational and business support systems, and on Thursday, Ericsson also said it had closed its £749 million acquisition of Telcordia.
Nokia, meanwhile, has sold a portfolio of more than 450 patents and applications, mostly in wireless technology, to Italian patent licensing firm Sisvel International for an undisclosed sum. The Finnish vendor said the sale is a normal part of managing its intellectual property, which includes more than 30,000 individual patents and applications.
And in other recent patent news, Microsoft said it has signed a patent agreement with LG Electronics that provides broad coverage under Microsoft's patent portfolio for LG's tablets, mobile phones and other consumer devices running Google's Android or Chrome OS Platform. Details about the value of the deal were not disclosed. According to Red Orbit, Microsoft executives have used the deal to taunt Google with the fact that it will be taking a cut of every Android device sold. Microsoft has already signed licensing agreements with Samsung and nine other vendors in addition to LG.
For more:
- see this Ericsson release
- see this Red Orbit article
- see this Techworld article
- see this Reuters article
- see this Dow Jones Newswires article
- see this Microsoft press release
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