The Open Patent Alliance, formed last year to create an IPR framework for WiMAX, plans to publish its recommendations for how to handle patent claims pertaining to WiMAX. Part of its recommendations will be a patent pool approach. The alliance believes it can create a model for how this can be done in the 4G world, according to an article in 4G Trends.
The OPA was formed last June by Alcatel-Lucent, Alvarion, Cisco, Clearwire, Huawei, Intel, and Samsung. The Alliance's key priority is to establish a set of tools to make patent licensing open, fair, consistent and transparent, in WiMAX. The tools could then be adopted by other technologies, including Long Term Evolution Technology (LTE). These tools will include a patent pool that operates alongside the bilateral deals that are already prevalent in the wireless industry. In the short term, the group's aim will be to demonstrate a real world pool that works and can win industry confidence.
"We want to be a real world example of a pool that is working, so people don't lose hope. That would then lead to the level of participation to make the pool credible and effective to the industry and the courts," said OPA President Yung Hahn.
In the LTE realm, Sisvel, VIA Licensing and MPEG LA are calling on companies claiming to hold patents essential to LTE to give them a call or send an email so they can evaluate the claims and create a patent program. Last spring, Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, NEC, NextWave, Nokia, Nokia Siemens Networks and Sony Ericsson established a patent pool to provide predictable costs for licensing LTE IP. But companies like Qualcomm, Nortel and Motorola favor bilateral agreements.
For more:
- check out 4G Trends
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