Sony will drop the Ericsson from Sony Ericsson branding in 2012 following the exit of the Swedish infrastructure vendor from the handset joint venture, reports the Times of India. Sony announced it was buying out Ericsson’s 50 percent share in the ten-year-old joint venture for EUR1.05 billion in October, making it a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sony.

Speaking to the Times of India, Sony Ericsson executive VP and head of sales and marketing Kristian Tear said Ericsson will be dropped from the branding by the middle of next year. He added that the change in branding will lead to an increase in marketing and advertising investments.

Sony will move to focus exclusively on smartphones during the course of 2012 and will phase out its feature phones as it looks to regain ground it has lost in the global mobile market in recent years. Sony Ericsson started to focus on Android-based smartphones after moving away from Symbian two years ago and now has a 12 percent share of the Android market, according to the Times of India.

As part of the deal to buy out Ericsson, Sony will gain a “broad intellectual property (IP) cross licensing agreement” for all of its products and services, as well as taking on ownership of “five essential patent families relating to wireless handset technology.” Sony chairman, president and CEO Howard Stringer said a “task force” is being set up to handle the integration.