Google Cultivates a Rep as Patent Gouger

Apple quietly wrote a letter to ETSI, the European Telecommunications Standards Institute, in November asking it to set basic rules for the licensing of standards-essential patents and to make its patent-wielding members commit to the principles. Apple clearly had Google and its Android acolytes in mind in writing the letter. Motorola Mobility and Samsung are asking ludicrously high sums to license IP that’s supposed to be available on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms (FRAND). They have also sued alleged infringers like Apple and Microsoft demanding product-stopping injunctions. Apple wants all this to stop. It wants ETSI to insist on appropriate royalties, a common royalty base and no injunctions. Apple’s lead IP lawyer Bruce Watrous told ETSI that the industry lacks consistent adherence to FRAND principles in licensing all the patents necessary to make mobile devices.

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