Apple has asked a European telecommunication standards body to set basic rules governing how companies license their industry-standard patents. Citing a recently disclosed letter from Apple to the European Telecommunications Standards Institute, the Wall Street Journal reports that Apple said the telecommunications industry lacks consistent licensing schemes for the many patents necessary to make mobile devices, and offered suggestions for setting royalty rates.
In addition, the company claimed that the lack of clear guidelines for the licensing of patents on a fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory basis — otherwise known as Frand— has led many companies to demand abnormally high royalty rates from one another, and has thus led to patent infringement lawsuits. “It is apparent that our industry suffers from a lack of consistent adherence to Frand principles in the cellular standards arena,” wrote Bruce Watrous, VP and Chief IP Counsel with Apple. Apple has asked the body to set “appropriate” royalty rates for technology, relative to the number of industrywide patents required to make a device, and has also said that royalties shouldn’t be beyond a common base. Earlier this week, it was revealed that Motorola asked Apple to pay a royalty of 2.25 percent for sales of some iPhones and iPads, a deal that would have been worth over $1 billion in 2011 alone.
