This week the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI for those of us who prefer something less tongue twisty) meet to decide what will become the next sim card standard, the nano sim.
A micro sim card, the nano sim card will be even smaller
The current sim cards, and micro sim cards, used are limited in how much information they can hold and in what features they offer. There are a couple of competing solutions being proposed for this weeks vote and one is from Apple who have apparently sent a letter to ETSI saying they will allow their patented design for a nano sim card to be used royalty free….for a price.
Yes there is actually a catch, in order to allow phone manufacturers to use their designs for what would, if Apple succeed, become the new sim card standard, Apple expect other manufacturers to let them use their standard essential patents for free.
Florian Mueller who broke the news on his blog after being shown a private letter sent to the institute from an Apple lawyer said Apple would grant “royalty free licenses to any Apple patents essential to nano-SIM, provided that Apple’s proposal is adopted as a standard and that all other patent holders accept the same terms in accordance with the principle of reciprocity”.
What Apple are doing is essentially shrinking down already existing technology, and then trying to use that as leverage to avoid paying licencing fees to their rivals when Apple uses their rivals technology.
So for simply scaling down existing technology, the sim card, Apple expect to be allowed to use everyone elses standards essential patents without paying for them, or to use their more obtuse phrase “in accordance with the principle of reciprocity”. Nokia have weighed in on the debate over this saying:
“we don’t believe it represents a significant reduction in size. We believe that in practice it would mean it was just different from micro SIM, rather than smaller, which could be a barrier to broad adoption as an alternative to micro SIM, potentially leading to fragmentation”.
Apple seem on the surface to be offering their technology for free when in reality what they are actually doing is slightly modifying someone elses work (if Nokia are right then Apple are essentially just shrinking the existing sim card design) then trying to get this accepted as a standard so they can then demand others return the favour by allowing Apple use of their more important, and more valuable, patents.
Indeed Nokia went so far as to say that Apples design could lead to people trying to insert it in normal sim or micro sim card slots and causing damage to the card or phone, which would suggest that Apples design is indeed little more than a shrinking down of current technology, in which case asking for free use of others patents in return seems more than a little cheeky.
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