That debate has raged for decades, notably in the wide-ranging wireless sector, bringing many a fruitful pay day to patent lawyers and exasperating some of the best judges as they grapple with issues such as open sourcing and patent pooling. The latest high profile spat that will have to rule on the matter pits those sometime FRANDs and FOEs, Ericsson and Apple, who last month started counter-suing each other in different US courts, having failed over the past two years to settle their dispute over the size of royalties Apple should be paying for Ericsson-owned intellectual property rights related to LTE standards.