Yesterday I told you that Apple sent in November of last year a request to ETSI - European Telecommunications Standards Institute - in which it specifies that there should be a series of standards that establish how a company can license FRAND patents and that compel companies not to use these kinds of patents to force their licensing negotiations. The efforts of the Apple company are supported by Cisco and Microsoft, which yesterday announced their position regarding the licensing of FRAND patents. Microsoft published a document on its own website in which it supports the demands of those from Apple and promises that it will not use FRAND patents as a weapon in court against those who use its technologies and in addition will offer fair, equal and non-discriminatory conditions for their licensing.
Microsoft has issued a public statement outlining its position regarding standards essential patents, committing itself "to always adhere to the promises it has made to standards organizations to make its standard essential patents available on fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms." The move joins an effort initiated by Apple last fall, and begs for comment from Google to do the same.
Besides Microsoft and Cisco stands up the requests of the Apple company and in a letter sent last week to ETSI, he emphasizes that the licensing of FRAND technologies should be done with much greater transparency than until now, companies having to calculate their licensing fees based on public standards. Cisco also supports the ban on using FRAND patents in lawsuits against companies with which there are or have been discussions regarding technology licensing, so basically we are talking about a position similar to that of Apple.
Cisco Systems filed its own letter to the European Telecommunications Standards Institute last week, backing Apple's position calling for "more consistent and transparent application of FRAND" licensing commitments among the standards body's members.
In contradiction with the positions of the companies Apple, Microsoft and Cisco, Google announced today that it will not support a fair, equal and non-discriminatory licensing of FRAND patents. The Mountain View company is preparing to complete the acquisition of Motorola which has already managed to block sales of iDevices for a few hours in Germany and supports his cause because he has a lot to gain. Google claims that in the past it was the victim of similar processes such as those between Apple and Motorola, and for the injustices suffered in the past, it intends to behave in the same way in the future with all those who want to license FRAND technologies. Google claims that the 2.25% requested by Motorola(over 1 billion dollars) from Apple for licensing FRAND technologies, which were the basis of the ban on the sale of some iDevices in Germany, are correct and that Apple should pay them.
In a distinct departure from the agreement voiced between Apple, Cisco and Microsoft regarding the need for fair, transparent, understandable and consistent licensing policy for open standards, Google has promised to continue to wage Motorola's increasingly hostile patent wars. despite waging a war in the court of public opinion last year in which Google boldly accused its competitors (mainly Apple, Oracle and Microsoft) of waging a "bogus" "patent attack" on Android, Google's letter to the IEEE indicates the company plans to maintain the same kind of closed, unreasonable patent demands it has long portrayed itself the victim of in patent lawsuits.
Although Google has its own vision on how FRAND technologies should be licensed, in the end the courts respect the ETSI standards and the laws in force, so everything boils down to long legal battles from which no one gains absolutely anything.
