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| TrendChip now dangerous enough to get sued |
| Wednesday, 10 March 2010 23:47 |
 Although TrendChip is near the top in volume of DSL chips shipped, until last week the attitude of the other three DSL chipmakers was “ignore them. They only are at the low end.” As Jonathan Schwartz just blogged “suing a competitor typically makes them more relevant, not less.” At Sun, Schwartz stared down both Steve Jobs and Bill Gates when they threatened patent suits. But Sun lost one to Kodak in a trial in Kodak's home town of Rochester. Lantiq apparently now considers TrendChip a threat, especially if Trendchip goes ahead with their merger with 802.11n chipmaker Ralink. Lantiq is asking a German court to stop Billion Electric from selling modems with TrendChip inside in Germany. I wouldn't want to be defending a Chinese company facing a German chipmaker in a German court. Lantiq while part of Infineon was a champion of standards aimed at minimal royalties, so I was surprised they chose to sue. They promoted their VDSL QAM chips as preferable to DMT chips in standards because they were royalty-free. Perhaps because they were treated so shabbily by the standards committees they now write “Lantiq takes its patents and intellectual property very seriously. Regardless of company size or competitive position, we will do everything in our power to protect what is rightfully ours and will continue to so.”
Lantiq like any patent holder is entitled to reasonable royalties, but a U.S. court in the TI-Globespan case established rates that are ridiculous. Globespan's antitrust defense was so strong that TI settled for $tens of millions less than the judge awarded them to avoid an antitrust battle. The DSL standard includes many technologies covered by patent, making it impossible to design DSL chips without infringing many patents. Time for Tom Starr, Malcolm Johnson, Susan Miller and the rest of the standards people to step up and make sure royalties are reasonable.
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| Last Updated on Wednesday, 10 March 2010 23:52 |