Apple and Ericsson end legal war after signing off on global patent licensing agreement

Agreement covers 4G, 3G and 2G, and Apple and Ericsson will also work together on 5G wireless standards

Apple and Ericsson have signed-off on a global cross-licensing agreement for wireless patents held by each company, which is intended to resolve all pending patent-infringement disagreements between the two companies.

Ericsson filed a complaint against Apple back in January over licence payments in response to a lawsuit brought against the company by Apple earlier that month.

Apple stopped paying royalties to Ericsson last year, after a six-year agreement had expired.

The companies have since been locked in disputes in the US and Europe, but Ericsson said that the companies will now restart on a clean slate.

Although terms of the new agreement haven't been disclosed, Ericsson said it will receive royalties from Apple for a seven-year term, which would boost its full-year licensing revenues for 2015 to between £1.02bn and £1.10bn from £710m in 2014.

The agreement will cover 4G, 3G and 2G wireless standards, and as part of the deal, the two companies have agreed to work together on the development of 5G standards, wireless-network optimisation and video traffic optimisation.

"We are pleased with this new agreement with Apple, which clears the way for both companies to continue to focus on bringing new technology to the global market, and opens up for more joint business opportunities in the future," said Kasim Alfalahi, chief intellectual property officer at Ericsson.