Ericsson and Lenovo have reached an out-of-court settlement over a long-running patents dispute covering 3G, 4G, and 5G.
The agreement, reached through a multi-year, global patent cross-license deal, puts an end to all pending litigation and administrative proceedings between the two companies in multiple jurisdictions.
Ericsson owns more than 60,000 patents the disagreement was over how much money Lenovo should pay to use Ericsson’s patented technology.
The dispute had gone as far as courtrooms in the UK, the United States, Brazil, and Colombia. At one point, Lenovo’s phones were even temporarily blocked from being sold in some countries. Those court cases will be now be dropped.
Details of the deal are confidential with the remaining parts of the disagreement being settled privately through arbitration .
Ericsson and Lenovo disagreed over terms for cross-licensing the technology. Ericsson proposed a licensing rate of one per cent per 5G device, capped at $4 per unit, Lenovo rejected this. The impasse led to a series of legal actions initiated by both parties across several countries.
In October 2023, Lenovo filed a lawsuit in London’s High Court seeking a determination of FRAND (Fair, Reasonable, and Non-Discriminatory) terms for a global cross-license agreement with Ericsson.
Lenovo also sought an interim license to use Ericsson’s patents while awaiting the court’s final decision. Initially denied, this request was later granted by the Court of Appeal in February this year, which acknowledged that a willing licensor in Ericsson’s position would agree to such an interim arrangement.
