Re: [Patents] Alcatel: Patents creating Legal Insecurity and diverting Innovation Efforts

[Erik Josefsson <erikjosefsson@telia.com>]

On Wed, 26 Feb 2003 20:27:03 +0100 (CET)
PILCH Hartmut <phm@a2e.de> wrote:

> The following quote from an Alcatel report of 2002, filed to the
>  Securities and Exchange Commission of the USA, may be of interest:
> 
> http://www.alcatel.com/finance/reports/2001/20-f/20f.pdf

The SEC 20-F from Ericsson
http://www.ericsson.com/investors/pdf/20-f_2001.pdf

contains similar risk assessment:

"product development risks, including our ability to adopt new
technologies, and to develop commercially viable systems and services,
our ability to acquire licenses to necessary technology, our ability to
protect our intellectual property rights through patents and trademarks
and to defend them against infringement, and results of patent
litigation"

I think Ericsson is going to court in May for infringing
tdma-patents of Interdigital. Interdigital wants 1 billion, so
Ericssons risk assessment in 2001 was probably correct.

To my big surprise, I found that Ericsson and Alcatel use the same
template for their SEC 20-F (from page 12):

"Like other companies operating in the telecommunications industry,
because our products comprise complex technology, we experience
litigation regarding patent and other intellectual property rights.
Third parties have asserted, and in the future may assert, claims
against us alleging that we infringe their intellectual property rights.
If we do not succeed in any such litigation, we could be required to
expend significant resources to pay damages, develop non-infringing
technology or to obtain licenses to the technology which is the subject
of such litigation. However, we cannot be certain that any such
licenses, if available at all, will be available to us on commercially
reasonable terms."

But I guess all companies has to describe the risks in their business in
the SEC 20-F, and they are in the same bussies, so, they have the same
problem. 

Ericsson also write they depend on other IPRs than patents: "We rely
upon a combination of trade secrets, confidentiality policies,
nondisclosure and other contractual arrangements, and patent, copyright
and trademark laws to protect our intellectual property rights..."

I have browsed a few other 20-Fs, very intresting reading, there is a
lot of info about political and legal situations.

thomson:
http://www.thomson.net/gb/01/doc/form20-F-2002.pdf
portugese telecom:
http://www.telecom.pt/financeiras/kit/ficheiros/PT20F_F.PDF
transgene:
http://www.transgene.fr/us/20-F%20exercice%202001.pdf
russian telecom:
http://www.rt.ru/off-line/icenter/reports/annual/Signed%20copy%2020-F.pdf
polish telecom:
http://investor.netia.pl/reports/netia_annual_report_2001.pdf


The SEC database itself was a bit unpenetrable:
http://www.sec.gov

//Erik