Cisco and four other major tech companies have banded together to form a WiMAX patent pool to give companies access to WiMAX patents at predictable costs., , , ,
The new Open Patent Alliance (OPA), whose other members are Alcatel-Lucent, Clearwire, Samsung and Sprint, is a consortium of companies that hold WiMAX 4G mobile broadband technology patents that will act as the official patent holder for companies that want to purchase WiMAX licenses. Thus, any company that wants to create a WiMAX-enabled device or application will have to reach a licensing agreement with the OPA before selling their product on the market.Don’t Miss!Read the latest WhitePaper - Troubleshooting Remote Site Networks - Best Practices
According to Cisco, the OPA’s goal is to issue WiMAX licenses to interested companies at “a more predictable cost” than what companies would pay if they had to negotiate with each WiMAX patent holder individually. To reduce licensing costs, the OPA will use a royalty structure that charges only for the features to develop WiMAX products.
“What the OPA does is it provides a foundation where people have predictability,” says Barry West, the CTO of Sprint’s Xohm unit. “Usually, companies would have to deal with multiple patent users, so we’re more of a facilitator to help them get WiMAX licenses from a single source.”
some pass for sure ceritification exams: , , , ,