3G IPR Working Group Meets April 8th.
M2 PRESSWIRE-27 February 1998-ALCATEL: First meeting of the UMTS Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) working group (C)1994-98 M2 COMMUNICATIONS LTD
Following the consensus reached on the choice of the radio interface for the third generation mobile systems (UMTS) at the
ETSI SMG meeting on 29 January 1998, the world's leading wireless companies met at Alcatel in Paris yesterday to further consider
the UMTS IPR concerns expressed in the recent ETSI consensus agreement. An important element of the consensus agreement was an
undertaking to work together to provide agreed guidelines for handling IPR essential to the UMTS specification. The rationale for this
proposal is to limit the liability of the proposed standard to excessive IPR demands. This would have a direct effect on the
commercial viability of the future mobile services.
Following the ETSI consensus agreement, many interested parties expressed the need to address this sensitive issue prior to
the complete definition of the technical specifications. The creation of this UMTS IPR Working Group involves all the
signatories (operators and manufacturers) of the original ETSI Press Release concerning the UMTS agreement. The objectives of this
inaugural meeting was to create an open and transparent process for bringing together all concerned parties in order to find a
suitable and equitable solution to the UMTS IPR issues.
The Working Group reviewed possible implementation schemes for identifying essential patents and the administration of those schemes. The meeting agreed to further explore the viability of such schemes within the framework of this UMTS IPR Working Group.
Given that the detailed technical specification work is now progressing rapidly in ETSI, the UMTS IPR Working Group will need to maintain a high momentum in the next few months in order to avoid any blocking IPR situation in the approval of the final standards. Therefore, the next meeting is planned on 8th April 1998 and work will continue between meetings on a range of identified topics by correspondence.
The participating companies listed below fully support this ambitious initiative: Alcatel, Analog Devices, Bosch, Cegetel, CSEM/Pro Telecom, Ericsson, France Telecom, Fujitsu, Lucent Technologies, Mannesmann, Matsushita, Mitsubishi, Motorola, NEC, Nokia, Nortel, NTT DoCoMo, Siemens, Sony, T-Mobil, Telecom Finland, Telecom Italia, Texas Instruments. |
