ITU to organize patent conference

By Cho Mu-hyun

International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Secretary-General Hamadoun Tourse said Monday that the organization plans to hold a conference next month to seek solutions regarding the rising tension between technology companies over patents.

Tourse lamented the recent snowballing number of intellectual property litigation between companies in information technology, highlighted by the recent patent disputes between Samsung Electronics and Apple over smartphones and touch-screen tablets, and expressed hope that the involved parties will move forward for more innovation.

The ITU will oversee a conference in Geneva on October 10, in which major power houses Apple, Intel, ZTE, Nokia, Qualcomm and others will participate. Suwon-based Samsung is not on the list of attendees.

“There have been several high level patent discussions lately, and for the ITU, being the setter of global standards, it is a worrisome trend,” said the secretary-general at a press conference at KCC headquarters in Jongno, downtown Seoul. “The purpose of the conference is to protect intellectual property and innovation.”

The governing body of the ITU will listen to stakeholders and discuss the possibility of actions to cope with situation. The UN agency also plans to remind members that their patent standards must be set on fair reasonable and non-discriminatory terms (FRAND). “Samsung has been a long time member, while Apple joined last week.”

The main purpose of Tourse’s visit to Korea was to inspect plans for the upcoming Plenipotentiary Conference 2014 (PP-14) that will take place in Busan. He plans to visit the facilities in the southern port city, such as the Busan Exhibition and Convention Center (Bexco), and lecture on the importance of broadband at Busan National University.

“I want the organization of the United Nation family to be looking into the future. You are use to the Olympics here in Korea, the PP 2014 is the ICT Olympics.”

He praised Korea’s high level of IT infrastructure, saying “there is no better place to host the events.” Korea was ranked first in ITU’s indicator for IT advancement for 2010 and 2011.

Major Korean conglomerates and government agencies are members of ITU, which includes Samsung and LG Electronics, SK Telecom, KT, LG Uplus and the Korea Internet Security Agency.