Date: 23/01/2012

Ericsson and ZTE agreed to drop patent related litigations

Ericsson and ZTE have now signed a global cross-licensing agreement and both parties have also agreed to drop all litigations. In April 2011 Ericsson filed lawsuits in Germany, UK and Italy against ZTE for infringing on several Ericsson patents related to GSM and 3G/UMTS cellular technology.

"Ericsson has the strongest patent portfolio in the industry with over 27,000 patents and any company which sells mobile devices or systems needs a license from Ericsson. We have signed more than 90 patent agreements with different vendors worldwide. Now we can add ZTE to this group," says Kasim Alfalahi, Chief Intellectual Property Officer at Ericsson.

ZTE signs a royalty bearing cross-licensing agreement that complies with Fair, Reasonable and Non- Discriminatory (FRAND) royalty compensation for access to part of Ericsson's patent portfolio.

Ericsson has also announced Ulf Ewaldsson is appointed as Senior Vice President, Chief Technology Officer, Head of Group Function Technology & Portfolio Management at Ericsson effective from February 1.

Ulf Ewaldsson is currently Head of Product Area Radio within Ericsson's Business Unit Networks and a member of Ericsson's research board. In this position he has been instrumental in defining the creation of some of the products that reflect Ericsson's technology leadership such as HSPA and LTE in the Radio Access Network (RAN), the multi-standard radio base station RBS6000 and the Antenna Integrated Radio Unit: AIR.