Ericsson strengthens focus on IPR licensing

STOCKHOLM, Jan.12 (Xinhua) -- The Swedish company Ericsson announced on Thursday that it would strengthen focus on Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) assets.

The company is reorganizing its Licensing and Patent Development department to further strengthen the focus on monetizing its IPR assets as wireless access is added to new types of devices, said Ericsson in a statement, adding that the reorganization is effective instantly.

The market potential might be huge for the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) industry as the ICT industry is built on standardized and shared technologies, said Hans Vestberg, president and CEO of Ericsson.

"Today's six billion mobile phone subscriptions, and close to one billion mobile broadband subscriptions, would not be possible without this industry mentality," added he in the statement.

According to Hans Vestberg, business opportunities will occur as new services will be in demand considering the development of built-in wireless access beyond traditional devices. This provides an interesting business opportunity for us, having this industry's strongest patent portfolio, as any company or manufacturer that wants to get in there will need an agreement with Ericsson.

Ericsson has 27,000 granted patents covering a wild range of technologies from wireless access (2G, 3G and 4G) to WLAN and the whole ICT value chain, making it the strongest wireless IPR portfolio in the industry, said the statement.

Ericsson today has signed more than 90 license agreements. The company is aiming at a higher IPR revenues above the 4.6 billion Swedish kronor (about 634 million U.S.dollars) net revenue in 2010 as new services and other industries are joining in the world of connectivity.