InterDigital Inc (IDCC)

[olddog967]

zombywolf: Apparently that type of license agreement wording regarding patent expiration is common.

The following is from an article discussing a Supreme Court decision last year that stated “it is per se unlawful for a license to require royalty payments for the use of a patent after the patent expires.”

“The Supreme Court also explained that the parties may continue to develop license agreements which cover multiple patents or other non-patent rights. Agreements involving more than one patent allow the parties to extend royalty payments until the last of the patents covered by the agreement expires. This is a common technique found in many license agreements. Regarding non-patent rights, agreements may continue to allow for payments after expiration based on some other non-patent right, such as a trade secret.”

http://www.btlaw.com/intellectual-property-law-alert---supreme-court-affirms-ban-on-patent-royalties-after-patent-expiration-06-25-2015/


I imagine the theory is that as long as the licensor is producing items covered by licensed patents they should be paying royalties.

Although the stated license term, under that criteria may be long, IDCC’s licenses also usually only cover products made to meet specific standards, i.e. 2G, 3G, WCDMA, etc. So even though the patents may not have expired, if the manufacturer is now only producing products under newer standards, no royalties may be due. That is one of the reasons why IDCC has been announcing that existing licensees have been amending their agreement to cover 4G/LTE