Ericsson wants to expand into additional licensing areas, including IoT, following a multi-year global patent cross-licence agreement with Chinese smartphone vendor Oppo.

The agreement between Ericsson and Oppo includes a cross licence covering patents essential to standards for cellular technologies, including 5G. Oppo, a smartphone vendor with sales in global markets, and significant presence in developing countries, will make royalty payments to Ericsson.

In addition to a cross licence, Oppo (www.oppo.com) and Ericsson will conduct business cooperation on a number of projects related to 5G, including device testing, customer engagements and marketing activities.

“This important royalty bearing licence agreement with Oppo allows Ericsson to further invest in fundamental communications technologies,” said Christina Petersson, chief intellectual property officer at Ericsson. “The licence confirms that the patent licensing industry works and is proof that a vast majority of licence agreements are based on business negotiations. It also reflects the mutual respect for each other’s patent portfolio.”

She said Ericsson now looked forward to growing its IPR revenues with additional 5G agreements and expansion into additional licensing areas, such as IoT and consumer electronics.

This agreement is in line with global practice where companies that provide products using cellular 3GPP standards such as 5G need a licence agreement with patent holders so as not to infringe these patents, and also for patent holders to be compensated for their R&D investment.

The financial benefit of this agreement was already reflected in Ericsson’s Q2 2024 financial results.

Over several decades, Ericsson (www.ericsson.com) has been a contributor to 3GPP and to the development of global mobile standards. The value of Ericsson’s patent portfolio of more than 60,000 granted patents is strengthened by its position as a 5G vendor, its 5G patent portfolio and annual investments of more than SEK45bn in R&D.