Norwegian Mobile outfit Ericsson has gone Viking on the state-owned Chinese telecom outfit ZTE claiming that it has nicked its technology.

Ericsson has unleashed long boats of lawyers armed with writs to take on ZTE in Blighty, Italy and Germany. At the centre of the row are patents relating to second and third-generation wireless technologies known as GSM and WCDMA.

Ericcson, which started out life as a telegraph outfit and is still the world's biggest mobile phone equipment manufacturer, wants the Euro governments to ban the sales of ZTE products. The matter has come to a head after Ericcson has tried having a quiet word with ZTE officials over a four year period and they still refused to sign anything. 

Maybe things would have gone better if they had stuck a bearded axe into the negotiating table.