The head of a corporate alliance that includes Nokia and Ericsson has urged the EU to beware the so-called ‘patent troll myth’, which he said has “little basis in fact”.

In a letter to The Financial Times, published on 21 Jan, IP Europe executive secretary Francisco Mingorance said that the narrative of abusive litigation by ‘patent trolls’ was a “calculated attempt to create a false rationale for weakening the patent protections of technology innovators in Europe”.

Mingorance’s letter came in response to a call by tech and auto companies including Microsoft, Volkswagen, Apple, and BMW for the EU to crack down on so-called ‘patent trolls’.

Last week, the tech and auto companies wrote to the new commissioner for the internal market, Thierry Breton, urging the EU to block courts from issuing automatic patent injunctions.

“Automatic injunctions make Europe more and more attractive to patent assertion entities, also known as ‘patent trolls’,” the letter to the commissioner said.

But according to Mingorance, the likes of Apple and Microsoft are “engaged in a campaign to change the licensing norms governing their access to the patented technologies underpinning cellular communications standards like 4G and 5G”.

“It could be argued that the true motivation for these claims is an attempt to reduce licensing costs,” he wrote.

IP Europe represents leading cellular standard-essential patent (SEP) owners including Nokia, Ericsson, and Orange.

Source: World IP Review