Micromax Told To Pay 100 Crore Royalty To Ericsson


Bangalore: Ericsson, the world's largest maker of equipment for building mobile telecommunications networks, has sued the Indian handset major Micromax for 100 crore over patent violations, marking the arrival of patent battles to the Indian shores, reports TOI.

Justice Manmohan of the Delhi High Court, in an interim order last week, asked Micromax to pay between 1.25 percent and 2 percent of the sale price of disputed devices and deposit the amount with the court. The court also allowed Ericsson executives to join customs officials in inspecting Micromax's consignments to check for devices violating its patents.

The Swedish equipment manufacturer has moved the Delhi court claiming about 100 crore in damages and alleged that Micromax has refused to enter into a licensing agreement covering its patented innovations across several wireless technology standards such as GSM, Edge and 3G.

"Ericsson has taken legal action against Micromax for refusing to sign necessary licences on FRAND terms. For more than three years, Ericsson has made numerous attempts to sign a licence agreement with Micromax for products compliant with the GSM, Edge, and UMTS/WCDMA standards. Since this is a pending legal process, we do not have any further comments," the Ericsson spokesperson said.

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