ITU plans roundtable on global patent litigation

Samsung vs. Apple patent litigation to become topic of discussion


The International Telecommunication Union said Monday it plans to hold a roundtable session on patent litigation next month to include discourse on the ongoing dispute staged between Samsung Electronics and Apple Inc.

“(Patent litigation) is a worrisome trend for us and we’d like this issue to become a discussion so that we can give a set of recommendations,” said Hamadoun Toure, secretary-general of the ITU, during a press conference in Seoul.

“This will enable us to understand the complexity of patent litigations and consider possible actions that could be taken by the stakeholders.”

The roundtable, which will take place at ITU headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, on Oct. 10, will assess the effectiveness of reasonable and non-discriminatory patent policies.

The session is also designed to offer a neutral venue for industry and standards bodies and regulators from around the world, according to ITU officials.

Participants who have registered so far include firms like Apple, Samsung, Intel, Microsoft, Nokia, Qualcomm and Cisco Systems, as well as the European Commission, U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.

“We have to bring this to a conclusion so that we can promote more innovation in the industry,” Toure said. “I believe the firms should spend less time in courts and work on new, innovative ideas.”

While elaborating that intellectual property needs to be respected, the chief of the United Nations’ specialized unit for information and communication technologies stressed that a firm with a certain patent should apply the same rules to all other companies.

Toure’s three-day visit to Korea comes as the Korea Communications Commission is hosting the ITU plenipotentiary conference, also dubbed the ICT Olympics, in Busan in 2014.

He visited the KCC’s chairman Lee Kye-cheol and signed an agreement to work together on the successful launch of the ITU plenipotentiary conference in downtown Seoul on Monday.

The three-week event, which will launch on Oct. 20, 2014, is scheduled to bring together about 3,000 people that include representatives from government, international organizations and businesses in 193 countries.

“Korea, a world leader in ICT, will be hosting this global conference,” he said. “Korea is a major contributor to ITU. Korea is also participating in very important projects regarding wireless broadband and digital broadcasting.”

Indicating that 2014 is the year before ITU’s deadline for a worldwide switchover to digital broadcasting, he said the event launched in Busan will be a “new turning point” for those involved.

He said the participating bodies will revise the ITU Constitution to devise a “new, stable one” and that Korea will be a key location for that task.

By Cho Ji-hyun (sharon@heraldcorp.com)