Socraweb

CeBIT 2007 was startled Thursday by a raid of the German police. With different exhibitors are products in possession taken.

At the base of the raid, a complaint of the Italian business Sisvel lay, that last year the Sansa-music players of SanDisk of the IFA remove let. Reason enough for socraweb once with Sisvel to go talk.

Coincidence or not, but daily after the spraakmakende action on CeBIT made Sisvel known that one agreement has reaches with SanDisk about the Sansa-affair. SanDisk gets a licentie for the patents on MPEG Audio that Sisvel defends. In exchange, Sisvel suspends the legal and administrative procedures against SanDisk.

'The action against SanDisk on IFA was the first time that we a legal action in the publicity brought', says Alberto Leproni, pr-responsible of Sisvel. 'We had not before all contact with them had, but they wanted till an agreement come. Therefore have we a complaint submitted and have the German dish - not we, but the right - judged that the Sansa of the IFA-purse floor had to disappear. On CeBIT, the same happened: a number commit damages the patents on the MPEG Audio-technology. It is our task the rights of the patent holders to defend.'

Sisvel ago was set up 25 year by engineer Roberto Dini as spider-evenly by the Italian firm Indesit. That business had decided from the television market to walk, but Dini believed that the built up intellectual property wanted to remain pay. The patents, below which a furrow the 'on-screen display' (OSD), with which institutions as volume and contrast visually regulated become, have been housed by Sisvel. For each television that OSD contain, received Sisvel during the course time of the first-rate 2 German mark.

In the course of the years, Sisvel wanted to add yet a lot of patents on its portfolio. Sleepiness went around the inventions at which several partners worked together. That is also the case for the patents around MPEG Audio Layer III (MP3), that were developed by Philips, the Institut fr Rundfunktechnik, France Telecom and Tldiffusion the France. Sisvel shut already with more than eight hundred businesses licentieovereenkomsten for MPEG Audio.

'Today you cannot the interest of intellectual property off. Previously was the business model in a straight line: a business invested in research and development And developed so a product that came on the market and profit yielded', stilt Leproni. 'In an IP-based model leads R&D till patents, that is given then in licentie and leads so till profit. That then again genvesteerd can become in R&D.'

In Europe is Sisvel most active defender of patents and trademarks. In the period 2004-2005 sat the business behind 27 per cent of all preventive actions in the ICT-sector. Computer business HP comes on the second place. Also in the electronics market is Sisvel most agressive plaintiff, with nine per cent of all actions - for gsm-giant Nokia.