3 Cellphone Makers Are Sued Over Bluetooth Technology

AMSTERDAM, Jan. 3 ( Reuters) — A United States research institute has sued three cellphone makers, accusing them of violating a patent for Bluetooth technology.
The Washington Research Foundation, which markets technology from universities and other nonprofit research institutions in Washington State, is seeking damages from Nokia, Samsung Electronics and Panasonic, owned by Matsushita, contending that the three companies were using a radio frequency receiver technology patented by a University of Washington scientist in 1999. The suit was filed Dec. 21 in Federal District Court in Seattle.
Bluetooth was invented as a wire replacement by an Ericsson engineer, Jaap C. Haartsen, in the mid-1990s and was developed by engineers at Ericsson and four other companies.
Nokia declined to comment and Samsung and Panasonic were not immediately available to comment.
Bluetooth was given away by Ericsson and others to create a global wireless standard to connect mobile phones, laptops, headsets and other electronic gadgets wirelessly. Hundreds of millions of devices a year are produced with Bluetooth ability.
The claim appears to restrict itself to Bluetooth devices sold or used in the United States, which means any ruling will affect around 15 to 20 percent of total global sales of Bluetooth mobile phones and headsets in the near term, according to Neil Mawston, an analyst at the market research group Strategy Analytics.
But Ben Wood, a consultant at CCS Insight, said the implications for the standard could be more serious if the foundation’s claim was successful. “A standard which everyone assumes to be royalty-free is now at risk of becoming a chargeable element inside mobile phones and other devices,” he said.
Although the complaint names the three companies, it specifically aims at products with Bluetooth chips from the British chip maker CSR, which has a world market share of more than 50 percent.
CSR, based in Cambridge, England, was not sued by the research group because it does not sell the chips directly in the United States. The company said the suit was “without merit in relation to CSR’s Bluetooth chips, and CSR will defend its products vigorously.”
The suit exempted a CSR rival, the Broadcom Corporation, based in Irvine, Calif., which has acquired a license to use the radio technology, the Washington Research Foundation said.