Companies Agree on LTE Licensing Terms

Seven different companies have agreed to make licensing technology developed for Long Term Evolution networks easier to manage. The thought is that by setting some ground rules for licensing intellectual property rights regarding the 3GPP LTE and SAE standards, it will be easier and less costly for the technology to be developed and deployed. The ground rules use the "fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory" principle regarding essential patents, and the companies have agreed to set royalty rates in the single digit of sales price range. The companies are: Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, NEC, NextWave Wireless, Nokia, Nokia Siemens Networks and Sony Ericsson. They also hope that this will prevent patent disputes in the future.