Telecom Lead India: Samsung Electronics has accused mobile equipment major Ericsson of breaching seven of its patents.
The accused Ericsson products include telecommunications networking equipment, such as base stations.
The Korean smartphone maker, as per media reports, filed a complaint against Ericsson with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), requesting a U.S. import ban and sales ban on some of the telecoms equipment maker’s products.
Samsung’s action is in retaliation to Ericsson’s recent request for an ITC U.S. import ban on Samsung products and sued the South Korean firm for patent infringement.
“We have sought to negotiate with Ericsson in good faith. However, Ericsson has proven unwilling to continue such negotiations by making unreasonable claims, which it is now trying to enforce in court,” said Samsung Electronics in a statement.
In Q3, Ericsson reported 17 percent drop in sales at its network unit.
Recently, TelecomLead.com reported that Ericsson’s Q4 net income will hit by SEK 8 billion on account of its 50 percent stake in ST-Ericsson. The charge includes write down of assets to reflect the current best estimate of Ericsson’s share of the fair market value of the JV, as well as additional charges related to the available strategic options for the future of the ST- Ericsson assets.
The Swedish telecom equipment maker is facing challenge from Samsung Electronics, a smaller player in the network equipment market. Samsung is in the process of adding 4G deals across the world, beating bigger rivals such as Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Huawei, Nokia Siemens, ZTE, etc.
Last year, Ericsson and ZTE resolved patent license issues by dropping all lawsuits and ZTE signing royalty-bearing license agreement to certain Ericsson patents. In April 2011 Ericsson filed lawsuits in Germany, UK and Italy against ZTE for infringing on several Ericsson patents related to GSM and
3G/UMTS cellular technology.
