This happens every time the Ericsson Patents come up for renewal. Ericsson demands from Apple exorbitant licensing amounts far above the FRAND (Fair, Reasonable, and Non-Discriminatory) rates Ericsson has signed contractual agreements with the Standard Setting Organizations—which accepted their patents for inclusion in the standard over other candidates— to charge every cellular phone maker. Alternately, Ericsson is demanding cross licensing of Apple's iPhone proprietary patents in exchange for their Standards Essential Patents (SEP) which Ericsson has already contractually agreed to license to ALL cell phone makers at FRAND rates. Apple will NOT agree to cross licensing of patents that differentiate their products from the run of the mill cell phones.
This kind of "Patent Holdup" always requires that Apple force the patent holders to sue under the FRAND rules to establish the FRAND rates to be applied, which is what Apple offered in the first place. Apple has been placing that amount in an escrow holding account since this negotiation began. Nokia Ioj pulled the same thing with their SEP patents back when the iPhone was first introduced. . . demanding access to the iPhone patent licenses in exchange for licensing Nokia's SEPs or else pay SEVEN times the going FRAND rate for Nokia's patent portfolio of SEPs required for cellular phones. The court ruled that Apple only had to pay Nokia the going FRAND rate, but the mainstream media and punditry press claimed that Nokia had WON the lawsuit because, under the FRAND rules they had been the ones who had to sue Apple for infringement of their patents. . . so technically it was true, they had won, but not for the 7X FRAND they were demanding. Apple actually won because the court merely enforced the FRAND contract agreement and ordered that Apple pay the FRAND rate which was Apple's argued position going into the lawsuit. That will be the most likely result of this lawsuit. . . which is what has happened in every FRAND case in every country such cases they've been brought.
Some FRAND Patent Holdups in Europe have resulted in the courts invalidating the patents for such egregious conduct. Samsung lost a cell phone SEP patent three or four years ago for bringing a FRAND case against Apple in Germany.
The EU was considering fining Samsung its entire annual profit for such practices two years ago.