Group to share patents for radio tracking
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - France Telecom (FTE.PA), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ.N) and five other companies got a go-ahead from the U.S. government to form a patent consortium to share high-frequency radio technology used in tracking and identification, the Justice Department said on Tuesday.
Each of the companies holds at least one patent that a standard-setting group had judged essential to create a type of system that uses a radio frequency to track tagged items.
The system is used by stores to track merchandise, in ID cards, and by airlines to track baggage.
"The consortium's proposed pooling arrangement appears reasonably likely to yield efficiencies," Thomas Barnett, the assistant attorney general for antitrust, wrote in a letter to the companies' lawyers.
"It includes safeguards reasonably tailored to minimize the risk of harm to competition," Barnett wrote.
The other five companies in the consortium are LG Electronics (066570.KS), Motorola Inc (MOT.N), ThingMagic, Inc, Zebra Technologies Corp (ZBRA.O) and 3M Innovative Properties Company, a subsidiary of 3M Co. (MMM.N)
The consortium had told the Justice Department it would market its patents as a group, would charge "reasonable and non-discriminatory terms" and would allocate royalties among themselves.
(Reporting by Diane Bartz; Editing by Gary Hill)
