Inside Secure appoints NFC patent licensing agent

The NFC chip specialist has hired IP commercialisation specialist France Brevets to handle licensing of more than seventy patents — including a core patent that is expected to mean any manufacturer incorporating an NFC controller into their device will need to acquire a license.

Inside Secure CEO Remy de Tonnac
DE TONNAC: “France Brevets will visit and explain why they must be licensed”

NFC chip specialist Inside Secure has signed a deal with patent licensing specialist France Brevets, an investment fund “dedicated to patent promotion and monetisation”.

The deal covers nine families of NFC patents, representing a total of more than seventy individual NFC-related patents, and included in the basket is a core patent dating back to 2000 — before the term “NFC” had been invented — Inside Secure CEO Rémy de Tonnac has told NFC World

This very early patent, says de Tonnac, described “very precisely what NFC was going to be” and means that any manufacturer that includes an NFC controller chip in a device will need to take out a license. Makers of smartphones, feature phones, tablets, laptops, PCs, TVs and smart meters will be amongst those affected.

In the case of those who do not obtain a license, “France Brevets will visit and explain why they must be licensed,” says de Tonnac. Manufacturers who choose to use Inside’s own SecuRead and MicroRead products, however, will not need a separate license.

The deal with France Brevets follows the expiry of an NFC patent pool which had been managed by US-based Via Licensing and included core patents from Motorola, France Telecom and NXP as well as Inside Secure. “We want to welcome other IPs within this programme,” says de Tonnac regarding the new deal, but its not yet clear whether other core NFC patent holders will join with Inside Secure in appointing France Brevets as their agent.

Details of the patents as well as licensing terms and conditions are available upon request from France Brevets at [email protected].

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