Ericsson Sells 2,185 Mobile Tech Patents To Newly Minted Troll, Unwired Planet

from the 2185-EXPLOITABLES!-NIB!-BID-NOW!!! dept

Wed, Jan 30th 2013 2:33pm — Tim Cushing

Well, if it wasn't clear before, it's certainly official now. Unwired Planet (formerly Openwave), a former innovator in the WAP browser field, decided back in April that it was no longer interested in competing in the marketplace. Instead, it set the dials to "troll" and announced a new "corporate strategy," one that would punish actual innovators for innovating. CEO Mike Mulica announced a "multi-pronged strategy to realize the value of [Unwired Planet's] unique patent portfolio."

Now, an aider and abettor has thrown Unwired Planet 2,185 additional trolling devices.

Last week, Unwired Planet, a patent licensing company that once upon a time was an Internet services company called Openwave, announced a deal to acquire a portfolio of 2,185 U.S. and international patents and patents pending from Ericsson.

The company said the deal “significantly broaden[s] Unwired Planet’s Mobile Internet-focused portfolio,” including 753 U.S. issued patents related to 2G, 3G and LTE technologies. Ericsson will also contribute 100 additional patent annually to Unwired Planet from 2014 through 2018. Terms call for Unwired Planet to compensate Ericsson with certain ongoing rights in future revenues generated from the enlarged patent portfolio. Unwired Planet will also grant Ericsson a license to the Company’s enlarged patent portfolio.

In other words, Ericsson will profit from any litigation or settlements Unwired Planet manages to extract from tech companies. Pretty good money, if you don't mind being part of the problem. Mulica was on hand again to put lipstick on the troll-pig with plenty of words that dance around the shakedown-and-sue "business model" Unwired is calling a "corporate strategy" these days.

Unwired Planet CEO Mike Mulica said in a statement that his company looks forward to “leveraging a strong, multi-dimensional patent portfolio and furthering discussions with key industry players who are interested in licensing these inventions to protect and further build their product strategies.”

Well, just replace "leveraging" with "exploiting" and "furthering discussions" with "shakedown letters" and "interested in" with "forced to" and we've got ourselves a sentence! For that matter, let's replace "protect and further build" with "tentatively move forward in a highly litigious atmosphere, infested with tapeworms sporting UP/E logos."

The costs inflicted by the new hybrid tapeworm will, of course, be passed on to the end users in the form of increased costs, fewer innovations and East Texan accents. Ericsson will receive, in exchange for patents covering a broad swath of "telecommunications infrastructure" (and part of its ~~soul~~ reputation), 20% of the first $100 million, increasing to 70% should Unwired be able to hit the $500 million mark. Unwired has already fired an opening salvo in the direction of Apple and Google, so the sky's the theoretical limit.

In addition, America itself will be blessed with several million more reasons for newly minted lawyers to embrace the patent field, which despite the best (but still very poorly done) efforts of the US government, still offers a good chance to make big money by doing little more than spamming successful companies with threatening letters.

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Filed Under: mobile, patents, wireless
Companies: ericsson, unwired planet

15 Comments

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Aymerik, 30 Jan 2013 @ 2:54pm

Also formerly Unwired Planet
Before OpenWave, they were Phone.com, and before that they were Unwired Planet (circa 1997).
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Aymerik, 30 Jan 2013 @ 2:54pm

Also formerly Unwired Planet
Before OpenWave, they were Phone.com, and before that they were Unwired Planet (circa 1997).
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Anonymous Coward, 30 Jan 2013 @ 3:08pm

�leveraging a strong, multi-dimensional patent portfolio and furthering discussions with key industry players who are interested in licensing these inventions to protect and further build their product strategies.�

Disgustingly, i could just imagine the sheer joy and ecstatic tone of voice when he was saying those words.
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Zem, 30 Jan 2013 @ 3:35pm

This kind of strategy works so long as the US domestic market is still one of the biggest and most proffitable to serve.

But the rest of the wrold is catching up, fast.

One day, it will be more proffitable to innovate somewhere else, more proffitable to sell somewhere else, more proffitable to just simply avoid the US market.

This kind of nonsense is a great way to destroy your own economy.
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Anonymous Coward, 30 Jan 2013 @ 5:40pm

Re: Also formerly Unwired Planet
aka douchebag
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Steph (profile), 30 Jan 2013 @ 6:49pm

What this says about Ericsson: We can no longer compete, so we will litigate by proxy.

What this says about Unwired Planet: You're a troll.

What this says about the state of the patent world: It's (still) broken.

Cheers,

IPTT
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totalz (profile), 30 Jan 2013 @ 7:43pm

Definitely a good news for other countries.
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WildBill (profile), 30 Jan 2013 @ 8:18pm

How is this any different from the mafia charging people rent for imaginary protection that will never manifest itself into a physical product when the time comes?
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That One Guy (profile), 30 Jan 2013 @ 8:27pm

Re:
One side's 'enforcers' wears suits and... wait, no.

Umm, one side makes dire threats about what happens to those that don't pay up... hmm, no again.

Aha, I've got it! One is legalized extortion and the other isn't!

I knew there had to be some difference between mafia shakedowns and patent trolling, just took me a bit to find it.
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Dave Nelson, 31 Jan 2013 @ 12:02am

Isn't this deal with Ericsson sharing the profits wandering into an illegal area, champerty or something? Sorta the same crap Righthaven tried.
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Josef Anvil (profile), 31 Jan 2013 @ 12:08am

It's a modern fairy tale
If you can't kill the trolls then at least keep one as a pet.
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Anonymous Coward, 31 Jan 2013 @ 1:05am

And the simple solution? Not allowing any company to have a patent they do not use themselves...If you don't produce anything, you can't be damaged by companies that do.
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anand kushwaha, 31 Jan 2013 @ 1:44am

hindi
jeetu
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Ninja (profile), 31 Jan 2013 @ 2:45am

Keep screwing up your innovators in name of easy money United States. Keep doing it. As a matter of fact, make your patents even worse and funnel all money that would go to innovation into those patent cases.

Once you are done suiciding the rest of the world won't miss you.
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anonymouse, 31 Jan 2013 @ 4:59am

Re:
China is already collecting the patents needed to prevent any American company from doing anything without paying them a cut, once they start suing and demanding that cut America will suddenly decide that patent law needs to be changed.
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