Hello and welcome to another M-Lex podcast. I'm Sam Wilkin, Brussels Bureau Chief, and today

we're going to talk about connected cars, specifically the technology that makes them tick and how it

should be licensed. This is turning into a big fight between patent holders like Nokia on the one

hand and the makers of cars and car parts on the other.

To explain why, I'm joined by Matthew Newman and Mike Acton,

two reporters who have been following it closely.

Hello, Matthew and Mike.

Hello, Matthew, what is the background to this case?

Can it tell us a bit more about standard essential patents

and how this case compares to other

disputes in the past? This goes back to the smart phone wars that were really fueled by these

massive disputes between the patent holders on one side, so Qualcomm, Erickson, and Nokia,

and the people who made phones, including Apple and Samsung and others.

So instead of talking about smartphones, we're now talking about cars.

And it's the same idea. Your car eventually will be connected to a network,

and you'll be to have all these great services, you'll be able to connect to hotels and restaurants

but to do that you need to have a standardized technology and that's why we talk about standard

essential patents it's a standard because everyone needs to use it it's essential because if you

don't have it your phone or your car is not going to be

able to connect to the network. And it's intellectual property, it's patents, and it's actually

owned by somebody. And in this case, it's owned by some of the major companies in Europe

who developed mobile technology, Erickson and Nokia, and as well as Qualcomm, which is one of the biggest

...