| Alby_da_Wolf said: Sony in the worst case, LG winning and not wanting to license its patents, could be forced to develop its own workarounds or license the implementations of some bits from companies different from LG, while paying LG a big compensation for the damages already done. This could take some time, though, and units already produced should be modified. But if Sony has money plus its patents for that cellphone lawsuit and settling it too to offer, the only reason for LG to refuse would be having as main goal to damage PS3 and stop its sales for months. Or maybe to make Sony's value drop and take it over for less? |
That's impossible: a patent holder must licence its intellectual properties at a reasonable price by law, otherwise it loses its patents. So the worst case for Sony is paying a fee to LG. The most likely case is a mutual licence agreement between Sony and LG. But the worst case for LG is Sony winning the litigation: in that case not only LG would lose its IP, but also it would have to pay alot of money to Sony for the illegal seizure of its consoles. That's the strangeness of this lawsuit: only 4 patents, with the chance to have to compensate Sony with a large amount of money.
As BBC reports:
"It will have to pay an astonishing amount of money if a judge rules that its patent is invalid. When a firm seeks to have goods seized they make an undertaking to pay for storage and compensation," he said.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12607370
