As one of the first big manufacturers of telecoms equipment, Ericsson holds a vast portfolio of patents, reports the Financial Times newspaper.
In the lawsuit, filed in the US, the Swedish company said Samsung refused to renew a licence agreement on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms after two years of negotiations. The Swedes are now seeking damages for the use of the patents since the previous licence expired last year

Royalty fees

In a statement, the South Koreans said: ‘Samsung has faithfully committed itself to conducting fair and reasonable negotiations with Ericsson over the past two years, but Ericsson has demanded prohibitively higher royalty rates to renew the same patent portfolio. As we cannot accept such extreme demands, we will take all necessary legal measures to protect against Ericsson’s excessive claims.’
Ericsson’s chief intellectual property officer, Kasim Alfalahi, said the patents related to anything with a level of ‘connectivity’, pointing towards telephone and tablet devices. He added that one possible outcome of the action would be to exclude the technology from Samsung products.

Autonomy row

Elsewhere, The Times newspaper in the UK reports that Mike Lynch, the former chief executive of British technology company Autonomy, has demanded ‘immediate and specific explanations’ from Hewlett Packard after the US company claimed it had been duped into paying well the over odds when it acquired the software group last year for $10.3 billion.
In a statement, HP said: ‘While Dr Lynch is eager for a debate, we believe the legal process is the correct method in which to bring out the facts and take action on behalf of our shareholders. In that setting, we look forward to hearing Dr Lynch and other former Autonomy shareholders answer questions under penalty of perjury.’