IDG News Service —
The most notable aspect of the Open Patent Alliance, a new group launched on Monday, may be which companies aren't involved.
Cisco, Intel (INTC), Samsung and Alcatel-Lucent, along with operators Clearwire and Xohm, introduced the Open Patent Alliance, a central pool for patents relevant to WiMax. Companies, such as consumer electronics developers that are interested in building WiMax into their products, can use the OPA to discover which companies have relevant patents for WiMax and to figure out how much it would cost them to license those patents.
The companies involved in the announcement were keen to stress that they expect other relevant organizations to join, but they made it easy to notice the absences while describing the patent situation behind WiMax.
"The essential [intellectual property] for WiMax is much more broadly held than some of the traditional cellular technology," said Barry West, chief technology officer at Sprint (S) and head of Xohm, Sprint's WiMax network.
The companies initially involved in the OPA would not say how many of the patents behind WiMax that they control, although Samsung said that it owns 25 percent of the patents behind certain components of WiMax. Other companies that have essential patents include Nortel and Motorola (MOT), said Phil Solis, an analyst with ABI Research.
Another notable owner of relevant patents that is not involved in OPA at the launch is Qualcomm (QCOM), which has been accused by Nokia and other mobile vendors of charging inflated prices for access to its patents. Qualcomm owns relevant patents to WiMax through its own development, as well as through acquisitions of companies including Flarion and Airgo Networks, said Solis. Qualcomm has signed licensing agreements for some of the technology to companies including Soma Networks for use in WiMax products.
Qualcomm does not intend to join OPA, it said in a statement. The way that patents are currently handled in the wireless market drives innovation and consumer benefit and so Qualcomm supports the continuation of current practices, it said. "3G technology has been deployed with an amazing growth rate over the past few years under the current IPR regime that encourages innovation and participation of companies with varied business models," Qualcomm said.
Qualcomm has already licensed its technology for WiMax technology to six developers of end-user devices, one infrastructure developer and one test equipment supplier, it said.
Other WiMax contributors will likely join the group, although possibly not all of them, Solis said. "This isn't going to be some catch-all type of solution," he said. "But what it does is start a foundation to push other companies to join, so you have this openness in terms of patent transparency."
