February 25, 2021
In a nod back to 2012, when Swedish tech giant Ericsson used these same tactics, Ericsson is once again using both Texas courts and the International Trade Commission (ITC) to try gain a competitive advantage over its rival, Samsung, with two sets of cases involving connected devices and equipment used to build 5G networks respectively. Ericsson’s aggressive litigious tactics increasingly seem less like legitimate business decisions and more like just thuggish behavior, or in some cases, classic patent trolling.
You may have heard of patents trolls, firms also known as patent assertion entities or PAEs. They typically use acquired patent rights as the basis for marginal and sometimes frivolous infringement claims and threats aimed at large companies. Samsung has been a frequent target, as their wide range of high-tech products can involve thousands of patented technologies.
The suits are usually pursued in courts, but the ITC has become a go-to arena as trolls can demand they issue import bans called exclusion orders which, when granted, ban the product from the U.S. market and can cost billions in sales and decimate consumer choice. Many companies find themselves backed into a corner where they settle with the trolls, in spite of the fact that they have not infringed.
Here’s a short video we published last year that explains this growing problem and misuse of the ITC.
Ericsson is not a typical patent troll, but they are acting like one, especially in the case on smart devices, and consumers are the ones who will ultimately pay the price as ITC exclusion orders can have massive market and economic impacts.
The ITC was never meant as a court to be used to gain unfair negotiating leverage in patent disputes; the agency exists to protect us from unfair international trade practices. Consumers should start paying close attention to this growing problem and ask Congress to modernize the ITC to make it less susceptible to clever litigators intent on padding their profits at the public’s expense.
