My contribution

experience

I have over 30 years experience in the Telecom Industry. Almost two decades in R&D and 15 years of experience in building a world-class operation for commercialization of Ericsson’s technology through patent licensing. 

Most recently I served as the Chief Intellectual Property Officer of Ericsson for three years (2016-2019).

 

Kazehara,
iPR strategy advisor, 2019-

Supporting Clients in ipr value creation

Examples of IPR strategy advise for Industry clients:
On a continuous basis, I am advising an investment fund focusing on Intellectual Property opportunities. Advise relate to new opportunities as well as management of acquired assets.
I am advising a major licensing agent on strategy and operational development. Assignments include performing strategy reviews, implementation of new processes, advise on the creation of new licensing platforms.
As Senior advisor in a larger project, I have been supporting a review of IPR management processes and organization towards a client in the global automotive industry.

Examples of expert witness  assignments:
I have been retained as expert witness in a total of five disputes to date, related to cases in the US court, the UK court, the Brazilian court and the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC). Clients have been on the plaintiff as well as the defendant side. My role in such cases are as a licensing expert, primarily providing opinion on industry praxis in licensing and interpretation of FRAND.

Other
I am engaged in the Board of tech company Smoltek, a Swedish nanotech company, and in the Board of Advisors of VideoLabs Inc, a US based licensing platform.

I have authored multiple articles in the field of IPR commercialization. Most recently a paper published in IAM Magazine together with Bowman Heiden, discussing the need of efficient transaction platforms for technology markets: https://www.iam-media.com/Magazine/Issue/101

ERICSSON,
iPR&Licensing, 2004-2019

Building a world-class IP commercialization operation


I have 15 years of experiencein building Ericssons world-class operation for commercialization of their patent portfolio, after being headhunted internally to take on this role. The majority of the 15 years I served as VP IPR Strategy, while during my last three years (2016-2019), I served as the Chief Intellectual Property Officer (CIPO) of Ericsson. 

When recruited internally to the IPR organization, I could bring my leadership and product management experience to help drive the transformation of the IPR organization into a business driven operation creating shareholder value. The first step into creating a structure for growth was by introducing a function for Strategy and Portfolio Management that could drive the transformation and long term patent portfolio management for Ericsson.

The IPR&Licensing organization was built over time by first setting a long term business strategy. In parallel to growing the business, new functions were gradually groomed and spun out from the Strategy team under my leadership. Functions like Assertion&Enforcement, Business Management, IPR Policy and Marketing&Communications were all started up within the Strategy team and spun out in steps to become separate functions.

As part of my role as VP Strategy was also to ensure FRAND licensing compliance, including valuation and pricing for licensing programs. Part of this role was to engage in multiple litigations over the years as fact witness when it comes to Industry licensing practice, Ericsson strategy, FRAND compliance, Pricing etc

I have been a witness in court or served as Ericsson company representative in several disputes involving Ericsson. Further I have been deposed as an inventor (Ericsson vs D-Link), as a fact witness and as a company representative. The most significant disputes are the following: Ericsson vs D-Link (2013 concerning WiFi); Ericsson vs Samsung (2013 concerning cellular technology); Ericsson vs Apple (2015 concerning cellular technology), TCL vs Ericsson (2017 concerning FRAND/cellular technology), HTC vs Ericsson (2019 concerning FRAND/cellular technology)

I have been engaged in founding several platforms on behalf of Ericsson, enabling new licensing opportunities, in collaboration with other companies, e.g. Avanci, 2016, a program for licensing cellular technology to the Automotive and Smart meter industries; Velos, 2017, a program for licensing HEVC video codec technology.

Achievements as CIPO of Ericsson

After an initial challenging period in the market place, the licensing business was put back to growth for Ericsson. The turn-around came in 2018, after a period of legal battles and delay tactics by market players. Successful renewals of major agreements with top-ten smartphone vendors and most recent an agreement with OPPO (press released February, 2019), world 5th largest smartphone vendor, were the basis for this.

Further, having established Ericsson as a leader in 5G essential patents, forms a platform for future growth. Starting 2017, a number of proof points testify to this fact, e.g.: The public announcement, early 2017, of Ericsson's price to license 5G smartphones; and The announcement of Ericsson’s “5G foundation patent application”, late 2017, putting Ericsson in a unique position as a leader in 5G patents.

ERICSSON,
R&D and Product Management; 1986 - 2004

Before joining the IPR business of Ericsson, I had a 17 year career first within Research and Development and later Product Management. I am a named inventor in 10 patents filed during the years 1987 – 1995, one of which have been used in litigation.

I joined Ericsson in 1986 as a Research engineer, specializing on algorithm development for GSM, US TDMA and WCDMA receiver technologies. My first project was the prototype contributing to the GSM trials, “kicking off” European standardization of cellular. Leaving Ericsson Research in 1998, I was in charge of Ericsson’s global research team for Radio Access, Smart Antenna Systems, Propagation modelling and Electromagnetic health. During this period Ericsson Technology had been chosen as the basis for GSM, US TDMA and 3G WCDMA in fierce competition with alternative proposed technologies. Further, the global project for developing cellular standards, 3GPP, had been formed.

As head of Product Management for 3G in Japan, I was part of supporting the launch of some of the first 3G networks in the world. Returning to Sweden a period followed as responsible for Ericsson’s product management of its 3G WCDMA radio network. During this period, I established a global industry consortium around standardizing a new interface in the Radio Network (CPRI) to enable a new type of deployment with distributed Radio Heads, enabling new ways of building coverage solutions.

© Copyright Kazehara