The US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas ruled
that for the purposes of honoring a fair, reasonable and
non-discriminatory (FRAND) commitment, a pool member is not
required to base royalties for its standard essential patents
(SEPs) on the value of components. HTC America Inc. et al. v.
Ericsson Inc., Case No. 6:18-cv-00243-JRG (E.D. Tex. Jan. 7,
2019) (Gilstrap, J). According to the court, Ericsson's
commitment to the European Telecommunications Standards Institute
(ETSI) does not specify whether it must use the value of components
or end-user devices to calculate royalty rates. Thus, there is no
ETSI prescribed methodology for calculating the license fee under
the FRAND commitment.
