Hardware companies Apple and Cisco and car companies Daimler and BMW, along with dozens of other companies, have complained to the European Commission about companies not wanting to license standard-essential patents on fair terms.
The letter is not public, but the Financial Times writes that dozens of companies from the tech and car industry have signed it and sent it to three members of the European Commission. Among those companies are tech companies such as Apple, Cisco, Dell and Lenovo. The names of Ford, Continental and BMW are also below the letter.
The companies complain that there are companies with whom they cannot conclude a patent license on the basis of ‘fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory’ conditions. Previous lawsuits have confirmed that those terms, summarized as frand, must apply to standard essential patents. These are patents whose technology is necessary if companies want to make products that support a certain standard.
The companies are not citing a specific case, but recently some of the companies in the letter, including Daimler and Continental, complained about Nokia’s terms on patents for self-driving car communications, Reuters reported. This technology relies on technology that the Finnish company once developed for telephones. Nokia would want too much money for the license, the companies said.