Via Licensing today announced that nearly 100 patents essential to the Long Term Evolution (LTE) standard have been purchased by Via’s wholly owned defensive patent bank.
Invented by BlackBerry, some of the foundational technologies covered by these standard essential patents include advance packet networks, carrier aggregation, and network selection, with coverage in 23 countries.
All Via LTE licensees will receive a license to these patents at no extra cost.
Via Licensing Corporation is a global intellectual property solutions provider dedicated to enabling innovation in partnership with technology companies, entertainment companies and universities around the world.
Via develops and manages licensing programs on behalf of highly innovative companies in markets such as audio, wireless, broadcast, and automotive.
“This acquisition is another example of Via continuing to develop creative patent licensing solutions for the wireless ecosystem and our patent pool licensees,” said Joe Siino, president, Via Licensing.
“These patents were carefully selected from the best of the BlackBerry SEPs in mid-2018 due to their market relevance, exceptional quality, significant global coverage, and essentiality to the LTE standard and beyond.”
The LTE standard advances broadband wireless connectivity for a wide array of products, including smartphones, wearables, tablets, and the growing Internet of Things (IoT), such as connected cars.
Via’s LTE multi-party patent licensing program provides product manufacturers and distributors a fair, transparent and cost-effective license to all the LTE, LTE-Advanced, and LTE-Advanced Pro patents in the program, and offers innovators an efficient solution to obtain a fair return for their investment in innovation.
“The wireless industry’s IP licensing landscape is incredibly complex given the broad, global scope of technology and service providers, volume of standard essential patents, and its history of contentious litigation,” said Doug Luftman, vice president, general counsel and secretary, Nomis Solutions, Inc., who earlier in his career was chief intellectual property counsel for Palm, Inc., one of the foundational innovators in the wireless consumer electronics space and a direct competitor with BlackBerry.
“Via’s patent acquisition program helps the wireless ecosystem gain greater certainty in protecting its investment in innovation, accelerating technology adoption, and transparently streamlining the overall IP licensing process.”
