In a major verdict by the California District Court in the now famous TCL vs. Ericsson case, Judge James Selna determined the FRAND royalty rates for Ericsson’s SEP portfolio of 2G, 3G, and 4G patents. Judge Selna largely relied on the top down approach proposed by TCL to calculate the FRAND rate and used comparable licenses as a cross check to ensure non-discrimination.

Top down approach involved determining Ericsson’s share of SEPs from the total number of industry-wide SEPs for each of the standards. Concur IP performed essentiality evaluations for 2,600 patent families to determine the total number of industry-wide SEPs. Despite numerous challenges made by Ericsson regarding Concur IP’s process of essentiality evaluation, the court relied on the number of industry-wide SEPs determined by Concur IP for the top down calculation (pages 28-32 of the judgement).

Questel, one of the world’s leading online service providers dedicated to intellectual property, announced today its strategic partnership with Concur IP Consulting, a high-end consulting firm specialized in intellectual property.

Read the full press release at:

https://www.questel.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Questel-ConcurIP-Press-Release.pdf

According to a report by market intelligence firm International Data Corporation, the worldwide annual transactions volume of mobile payments are expected to cross US$ 1 trillion in 2020 from US$ 500 billion in 2015. It becomes an equally valuable question - who is filling this huge gap? The answer is spread across companies ranging from global tech giants like Google to fintech companies like Paypal and several startups. Further, the legal framework and operative guidelines from the regulatory authorities on mobile based payments have been absent until now - not anymore! Companies like Samsung, Apple and Google have patiently waited for this opportunity and have been slowly gathering mobile payments related patents. As the regulatory and legal framework takes shape and markets incline towards reliance on mobile payments, something long due will be set in motion too - patent licensing and infringement lawsuits.

5G is rapidly coming into the limelight as it is considered a technology revolution that will address the growing demands of the telecom industry. In this study, we discuss 5G technology development, identify early trends in technical contributions, and highlight the companies jostling for the 5G leadership crown.

Startups and smaller companies specializing in enhanced visualization technologies have been at the epicenter of Virtual & Augmented Reality. Acquisition of such players is instrumental in positioning technology giants like Microsoft, Facebook and Apple towards market capture and building strong patent portfolio. Hence, it is becoming very crucial and time-critical to understand the technology and patent protection from the small player's standpoint. It is only a matter of time when strong patent owners will assert their patents on the infringing products in this growing multi-billion-dollar ecosystem.