Ericsson has said Apple had declined a licensing deal and refused an offer to have a court determine fair licensing terms by which both companies would be bound. According to WSJ, Apple and Ericsson had a patent deal dated back to 2008 which expired in January this year. Since then, the two companies have failed to come to an agreement regarding the licensing amount. Ericsson has filed two complaints with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) seeking blocking of sales of several Apple products, including the iPhone and iPad in the United States. The company has also filed seven complaints with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas as part of the negotiations. Apple claims that Ericsson is demanding excessive royalties for patents not essential to LTE standards. However Ericsson counters that argument by saying Just recently, Ericsson had sued several Android OEMs including Micromax, Lava and Xiaomi in India, and even managed to partially block the sales of some of the Xiaomi handsets in the country. Ericsson is the world’s largest provider of mobile network equipment and holds over 35,000 patents related to 2G, 3G and 4G wireless technologies. It’ll be interesting to see how Apple reacts to the lawsuit.
