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Apple agrees to pay Ericsson a portion of its iPhone revenue in patent deal

Apple agrees to pay Ericsson a portion of its iPhone revenue in patent deal

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Ericsson is now bringing in revenue from Apple and Samsung

By Micah Singleton

Source Ericsson | Via Reuters and 9to5Mac

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Apple and the mobile telecom giant Ericsson have agreed upon a patent license deal that will find the world's largest company paying out a small portion of its iPhone revenue to the Swedish company. Ericsson did not announce how much it stands to make from the seven-year deal, but an estimate by investment bank ABG Sundal Collier pointed out by Reuters has Apple paying out 0.5 percent of its iPad and iPhone revenue.

The patent dispute between Apple and Ericsson has been ongoing since 2012. Ericsson owns patents that are essential to LTE technology, as well as older standards like GSM and UMTS. Samsung agreed to pay Ericsson ongoing fees for those same patents as part of a deal between the two companies back in 2014. Apple took Ericsson to court back in January, claiming Ericsson's patent fees were too high. Ericsson countersued a day later, and followed it up by trying to get the United States International Trade Commission to halt iPhone sales in the US.

Now the posturing is over, and the two companies have agreed to work together on "development of the next generation 5G cellular standards," according to Ericsson. That's probably a smart move for Apple, unless it wants to pay out patent fees to Ericsson for the rest of time.

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