Samsung is asking the International Trade Commission to ban U.S. imports of wireless base stations and other telecom equipment manufactured by Ericsson. The Korean electronics giant is responding to a lawsuit filed by Ericsson last month which claims that Samsung is infringing Ericsson’s patents while refusing to license its own standards essential patents on reasonable terms. Ericsson is suing Samsung over technologies used in smartphones and tablets.
Samsung, already the world’s leading maker of mobile devices and the world’s second-largest maker of semiconductors, clearly wants to establish a strong presence in networking equipment as well. The company already makes the chips that power many switches, routers and base stations and is now trying to grow its equipment business.
Samsung and Ericsson are both suppliers to Sprint Nextel’s Network Vision plan. Sprint Nextel, which has agreed to be acquired by Japan’s Softbank, is purchasing hardware, software and services from the Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent and Samsung.
