| Other Photos |
 |
|
 |
Motorola Accused of Theft of Russian Intellectual Property
The Russian RussGPS company has accused Motorola of violating its patent rights to seven models of Motorola telephone sold in Russia, the C115, C261, C333, C390, E365, L6 and L7. Those were the models of the 167,500 telephones, worth $19 million, seized from the Evroset Co. on March 29 by the K Division of the Interior Ministry and the FSB. Market observers see the RussGPS action as a continuation of that scandal and a joining of forces by law enforcement and “patent racketeers,” which could have serious negative consequences for Motorola.
RussGPS representative Pavel Panov said that his company demanded of law enforcement agencies that its utility patent No. 31183 of a “Mobile communications terminal” be defended against violations by Motorola, for producing them in Russia, and Evroset, for selling Motorola products. Patent No. 31183 is valid in all territories of Russia and applies to “the majority of Motorola cellular telephone models and the telephones of other producers manufactures from a Motorola microcircuit base.” RussGPS wants to reach a licensing agreement with Motorola, under which the American manufacturer would pay RussGPS for the right to its supply telephones to Russia. Panov noted that “We have warned all large dealers that they may be violating our rights by selling Motorola telephones.”
Patent law experts say that RussGPS's claims against Motorola are a typical example of “patent racketeering.” Vadim Uskov, head of the Uskov and Partners law firm, commented that “utility patents, one of which belongs to RussGPS, are granted in a month and are not carefully checked in Rospatent [the Federal Service for Intellectual Property, Patents and Trademarks]. Most often, there is no innovation in such patents and they are received, as a rule, with the goal of blackmail.” Motorola declined to make an official comment on the situation yesterday.
Panov told Kommersant yesterday that the patent case had been combined into the criminal case opened on April 12 in connection with the telephones confiscated by Evroset. The Dynamica Interline customs broker is also a party in that case. The federal state unitary enterprise Center for Information Technology and Systems found that 50,000 of Motorola's C115 models exceeded radiation limits. Those telephones were destroyed. “It is possible that unprincipled law enforcement personnel will use the actions of the patent racketeers to their advantage,” Uskov commented. “It gives security agencies not a bad reason not to return any of the telephones to their owners.”
Dmitry Zakharov
All the Article in Russian as of May 22, 2006
|
|
|
