Telecommunications Industry News

Intellectual Property Law and the Telecommunications Industry

Like any highly technical and constantly evolving industry, telecommunications technology has become a hotbed of intellectual property disputes, patent and trademark lawsuits, and legal blood feuds between corporations.

The subject of these conflicts can be anything from the name of a new wireless device to the ownership of a certain software technology. The common law system prevalent in most North American jurisdictions means that the law on these issues continues to evolve and expand to meet new legal precedents.

One of the more infamous intellectual property feuds in recent memory was the highly publicized lawsuit against wireless email leader, Research In Motion, by NTP Inc., an obscure patent shark. The Virginia-based company claimed that RIM’s popular BlackBerry device infringed on a number of U.S. patents registered by NTP in the late 1990s.

Upon losing the case, RIM was threatened with an injunction blocking the sale of its products in the United States, and ultimately paid NTP a settlement of US$612 million, despite the fact that the patents in question were in the process of being invalidated. After paying the settlement, Research In Motion ran ads in a number of major newspapers, criticizing U.S. patent law and encouraging reforms to the system.

Trademark law is another issue that frequently affects telecommunications companies, especially in relation to the branding of new products and services. Apple’s iPod cell phone device, for example, which was unveiled in January 2007 under the name “iPhone,” was met with legal threats from Cisco System which already owned rights to the iPhone trademark in the U.S. The networking giant ultimately agreed to settle the issue, but only on the condition that Apple ensured “interoperability” between its iPhone product and Cisco’s corporate phone systems.

There is little doubt that intellectual property law is and will remain a major force influencing the actions and business practices of telecommunications and technology companies. Patent and trademark regulations provide a valuable layer of protection for thinkers and inventors everywhere, but remain vulnerable to abuse in many situations.