Bach Seat

The wireless patent wars wage on. Ericsson, (ERIC) the Swedish telecommunications giant has filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas against a number of companies for alleged patent infringement of its IEEE 802.11 Wi-Fi products reports CENS.com. CENS.com says the businesses named in Ericsson’s lawsuit include:

• Acer’s parent company,
• Acer America,
• Acer’s Gateway subsidiary,
• D-Link’s parent company,
• D-Link’s subsidiary in America,
• Netgear.

The CENS.com article says the lawsuit involves all WLAN (wireless local area network) devices either incorporating chipsets supplied by:

• Atheros Communications Inc.,
• Ralink Corp.,
• Realtek Semiconductor Corp.

or OEM products made by:

• Foxconn Technology Group,
• Gemtek Technology Co Ltd.,
• Lite-on Technology Corp.

Tech Connect reports that Ericsson claims, the companies named are offering products that violate one or more of the following WLAN patents (number/title):

• 6,466,568 – ‘Multi-rate radiocommunication systems and terminals’
• 5,771,468 – ‘Multi-purpose base station’
• 6,519,223 – ‘System and method for implementing a semi-reliable retransmission protocol’
• 6,330,435 – ‘Data packet discard notification’
• 6,772,215 – ‘Method for minimizing feedback responses in ARQ protocols
• 6,424,625 – ‘Method and apparatus for discarding packets in a data network having automatic repeat request’
• 6,173,352 – ‘Mobile computer mounted apparatus for controlling enablement and indicating the operational status of a wireless communication’
• 5,987,019 – ‘Multi-rate radiocommunication systems and terminals’
• 5,790,516 – ‘Pulse shaping for data transmission in an orthogonal frequency division multiplexed system’

Ericsson requested the infringing companies to compensate its losses and asked the court to ban the sales of the infringing products. D-Link told CENS.com they cannot give any comment because the company had not received any file from the court. But it will not affect the sales of its products. Acer told CENS.com that its legal department had received the related notice and has started judicial procedures.

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I have covered other WLAN patent suits here and here. While I’m no patent lawyer, what this says to me is that the WLAN market is starting to level off and firms are looking for “other” ways to make some money without producing products. A business tactic fresh from the 1980s.

I also noticed that this suit between a European firm (Ericsson) and Asian firms (Acer, Netgear, and D-Link) was brought in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. This seems to be a favorite place for firms to sue each other, I wonder if anyone has ever investigated why this court is so popular for alleged patent troll cases.

One of the things that we instituted a while ago, in our RFP’s and contract’s is a clause that requires the VAR and the manufacturer to hold the end-user harmless in regards to patent suits the VAR or manufacturer may get entangled in.

Related articles

• Graphene-based Nanoantennas Could Allow WLANs of Nanodevices (mobile.slashdot.org)

 

Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.