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Ofcom says mobile contracts should ditch inflation-related price rises

Ofcom says mobile contracts should ditch inflation-related price rises

UK telecoms regulator Ofcom wants to ban inflation-related rises in phone and broadband contracts. Instead, it says any potential mid-contract price rises should be set out in pounds and pence.
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Global smartphone market is set for recovery, says new forecast

A new forecast from research specialists Canalys shows the smartphone market is set to recover next year. Worldwide shipments declined by 12% last year but that decline is expected to slow to 5% this year.
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Vodafone and Three plan to merge their UK businesses

Vodafone and Three plan to merge their UK businesses

New Hutchison/Vodafone network would be biggest UK operator

Vodafone Group plc and CK Hutchison Group Telecom Holdings Limited have agreed to combine their UK telecommunication businesses, respectively Vodafone UK and Three UK. The merger will create a large new network operator to compete with Virgin Media O2 and EE.
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UK mobile payment service Paym to close in March 2023

UK mobile payment service Paym will close on 7th March 2023. The service, which allowed users to make and receive payments using their mobile phone numbers, was launched in 2014.
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Qualcomm legal action moves forward in the UK

Qualcomm legal action moves forward in the UK

Which? seeks payout for Samsung and Apple smartphone owners

Consumer protection organisation Which? has been given permission by the UK's Competition Appeal Tribunal to represent Apple and Samsung smartphone buyers in a legal case against chip manufacturer Qualcomm.
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Opinion Articles

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Could a new legal framework for FRAND principles end the mobile patent wars in 2013?

Mark Bridge writes:

I’m not the first person to point out that mobile phone patent battles are raging all around us. They’ve been going on for years.

However, the topic of FRAND patents - those designated as ‘industry standards’ and therefore required to be licensed on Fair, Reasonable And Non-Discriminatory terms - has become an increasingly newsworthy topic.

In the last couple of weeks we’ve reported on an EC investigation into Samsung’s licensing of mobile patents and a Motorola/Apple legal battle that involves FRAND licensing.

More recently, intellectual property analyst Florian Mueller has looked into the perspectives of a number of leading mobile companies and has published details of their statements.

He notes that Apple believes a commitment to FRAND licensing should rule out the possibility of court injunctions; something that Google and Motorola haven’t done. Cisco has supported Apple’s statements, while Microsoft shares a similar anti-injunction perspective. Encouraging news overall, I think.

Those various commitments may soon be put to the test. The EC’s vice president of Competition Policy, Joaquín Almunia, said on Friday that he would make sure companies with essential patents gave ‘”effective access” on FRAND terms. He wants new ‘antitrust’ rules to be in place by the end of next year - and with law-breaking companies already able to be fined 10% of their turnover, those rules are likely to be tough.

At the moment we appear to be in the middle of many patent battles. It’s difficult to see how all those battles will end... but it seems the end of the patent wars - at least in Europe - could well be in sight.

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2/13/2012 5:05 PM

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