Context: Avanci’s electric vehicle (EV) charger pool contains the cellular standard-essential patent (SEP) portfolios of about four dozen licensors. There is steady growth. For example, last month Avanci EV Charger signed up ADS-Tec Energy as its fourth licensee (October 31, 2024 ip fray article).
What’s new: LG has now become the first cellular SEP holder to license a pool to which it has also contributed its own cellular SEPs. Avanci announced two new EV Charger licensees: EvoCharge and LG (November 27, 2024 LinkedIn post by Avanci).
Direct impact: That dual announcement takes the total number of Avanci EV Charger licensees to six (Avanci EV Charger program webpage), and within less than a year of the launch of that program.
Wider ramifications: While LG’s bidirectional relationship with Avanci EV Charger is new for cellular SEPs, other companies have also found themselves simultaneously on both sides of the pool licensing table, such as in connection with Avanci Broadcast, three of whose licensors are also licensees (January 25, 2024 ip fray article). The fact that pool terms must work for pure licensors, pure licensees and licensor-licensees adds to the complexity that courts must not underestimate when (or even before) engaging in FRAND adjudications involving collective-licensing programs (November 15, 2024 and November 27, 2024 ip fray articles).
Avanci’s LinkedIn post describes the two new licensees as follows:
EvoCharge is a premier electric vehicle charging station company, providing Level 2 Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment (EVSE) charging stations and cable management solutions for home and commercial use.
LG is focused on developing new innovative creations across the globe, committed to providing electronic products that help customers live a better life.
It quotes Marianne Frydenlund, VP of Avanci IoT (EV chargers are one of various product categories of the internet of things):
“We are delighted to welcome EvoCharge as a licensee for Avanci EV Charger, as they work to make charging electric vehicles easy, safe, reliable and cost-effective. We appreciate their trust and confidence in our independent, one-stop solution.”
If licensors take a license to the same pool they contribute their relevant patents to, they “eat their own dog food” as far as the pool structure is concerned. This is distinguishable from cross-licensing, however. Only with respect to a given combination of a product category and a patent category, the net effect may resemble the one of cross-licensing. But each licensee pays the full license fee, as opposed to merely a balancing payment. And it is, again, very category-specific, unlike a cross-license agreement covering all (or at least many) fields of technology.
LG first became an Avanci EV Charger licensor, and then a licensee. Toyota became an Avanci 5G licensee as announced last month (October 9, 2024 ip fray article). It has acquired 5G SEPs from OPPO, so Toyota could go in the opposite direction as LG and become an Avanci licensor as well. Sooner or later, some car maker is bound to do so.