With patent lawsuits becoming the staple in the tech industry, it comes as a relief that the world’s biggest tech companies are assembling today to meet with the (at the time of writing) United Nation’s International Telecommunication Union. At the patent round table meeting, the tech companies, alongside officials of the ITU, will assess the effectiveness of reasonable and non-discriminatory based patent policies.
The meeting, which has been organized to take place at the Geneva, Switzerland based ITU headquarters, will pull in some of the big names in the technological space. Reports indicate that some of the notable names that will attend the meeting include Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (ADR) (LON:BC94), Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG), Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT), and Nokia Corporation (NYSE:NOK). An alternate report from BBC also noted that embattled smartphone maker RIMM would be present in the meeting. Other names that have popped up include Hewlett Packard and Cisco systems.
This meeting comes at the wake of the widely documented Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), Samsung patent struggle, that has since taken an interesting twist following Samsung’s recent lawsuit on Apple’s new iPhone 5. Similarly, the European Union is still on a continued probe over the potential abuse of the patent system. The EU’s probe has dragged Samsung and Motorola, along other notable names. At the heart of the simultaneous patent disputes, it has also been noted that David Drummond, Google’s legal chief, has issued various statements to the press that call for reforms on software patents.
As reported by BBC, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT), alongside other companies, will be pushing for changes in some of the fundamental rules that underlie the current patent system. They argue against the blockage of products on the grounds of standard essential patent disputes. “Patent holders should not seek to block shipments of competing products just because they implement an industry standard – a license on reasonable terms is always available,” notes Microsoft, in a statement that it issued to the ITU prior to the meeting.
QUALCOMM, Inc. (NASDAQ:QCOM), which will also be present in the meeting, took a very extreme stand against the ongoing patent wars. “The so-called ‘patent wars’ should be seen for what they are: a small number of participants in a highly competitive industry, in which change and innovation occur at lightning speed,” notes Qualcomm in its statement to the ITU.
Some of the notable company representatives who will present their companies in the meeting include BJ Watrous, Apple’s vice president for Intellectual Property and Licensing.
