Ericsson sues Apple over licence payments

Many Apple products are believed to use the Ericsson
technologies
Ericsson has filed lawsuits in three separate countries,
alleging Apple has not kept up with technology licence
payments.
The Swedish telecoms equipment maker said Apple was still
using Ericsson's patented technologies even though it did not
have a licence to use them.
Ericsson said it had offered to conduct arbitration talks with
Apple but that offer had now expired.
The lawsuits have been filed in the UK, Germany and the
Netherlands.
Apple has yet to comment on the legal action.
"Our technology is used in many features and functionality of
today's communication devices," said Kasim Alfalahi,
Ericsson's head of intellectual property in a statement. He
said the dispute had already been going on for two years and
was "confident" the courts would help resolve the matter
"fairly".
The dispute revolves around technologies Ericsson developed
for second and fourth generation mobile networks and
handsets. The patents in dispute are believed to cover
accessing apps on phones, the streaming of video to handheld
devices as well as chip design. Ericsson owns more than
35,000 patents covering mobile technologies.
The latest legal action follows the filing of lawsuits in America
in February by Ericsson in response to an Apple complaint over
the complexity of the technology patents.
In 2014, phone maker Samsung paid Ericsson $650m (£421m)
to end a dispute over patented technology.
Analysts estimate that if the courts side with Ericsson it would
get payments of up to $725m annually from Apple.