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If Idcc really did leave $100 million on the table for the first 4 months of 2006 as some posters suggest, just think of what's left on the table for the future. Both nok and idcc are familiar with the facts and each others positions on the 3G dispute. Idcc is the Walmart of IPR and, as such, offers a refreshing opportunity for nok to work with them. With 2G out of the way, we should be able to reach a compromise VERY SOON on 3G.
We need to go after Nok for 3G NOW. The best feature of the 1999 PLA was that the named oem's were assured that if they paid, Nok would also pay. This assurance is now gone. Sam, Mot, and Ericy, will be hesitant to pay unless assured that their chief competitor, Nok, is also paying. The only way we can give this assurance is to take care of business with Nok first. I realise that LG is paying and I'm not sure why. Whatever magic we worked with LG, we'd better work with the others soon. I do, however expect Nok to be the most intransigent.
Nok, by refusing to drop their legal challenges to our 3g IPR,has guaranteed that, before we can license for 3G, we will have to win in court. Meanwhile, Nok is choosing the venues and the details for these challenges. I don't see anything to be gained by delaying the initiation of our own suits against Nok and/or possibly others for 3G infringement. If we fail to do this, we are just making Nok look smart and LG, not so smart, for signing with us.
From NOK PR release today:"This case demonstrates that legal disputes are sometimes necessary in order to lower UNREALISTIC demands." This gratuitous spit in your face type of statement reinforces a reminder to myself that I have pasted on the rim of my computer screen "Nok will litigate in every possible instance" Litigating the appeal of the arbitration decision and the appeal of the appellate decision had put them in an impossible position from which we just extricated them. Its going to be tough to get them in the same kind of position for 3G but I think they'll litigate unless and until we do have them in such a corner. IMO
The appeals court is looking at a rather narrow question: Should the decision of the arbitration panel be overturned? Given the law and precedents in cases like this and the well constructed decision of the lower court, I would imagine that there is a test of some very minimal pertinent reasoning that Nok needs to meet in order to back up their appeal. If they have not met this test then their appeal may be frivolous and sanctions may be in order.
I agree with respect to ericy. The following comment was made by H.G. at the CC on 3/17/03:" we're very focused on what is included, as well as what is not presently included within the scope of the Ericsson and Sony Ericsson license agreements. We have established operating protocols with them. They certainly understand that situation and they understand that InterDigital is going to be around for a while.
But, more importantly, we're developing a framework of trust and a framework of - a relationship framework and the ability to talk through issues, as opposed to what we faced in the past. So we took the clear decision to resolve the issues that were under litigation. Which we had a mandate, we had certain pressures to do that, and we wanted to be able to resolve that issue first.
Having done that, I believe that there is a positive framework going forward. And with a company that has a lot of integrity. And I believe that in this new environment going forward, we will be able to resolve those issues."
Its been over 3 years. HG is gone and we still haven't "resolved those issues" Do we have to wait another 3 years and for WM to also be gone before we sue them for 3G infringement?
Nokia, as the leader a cabal of a small group of large EOM's, has just about achieved its monopolistic goals of freezing out all but the largest of handset manufacturers. Now its goal is to do the same with inventors of technology it uses. Nok has even taken on Qcom. Nok's dispute with Qcom and Idcc is not really about royalty rates but about the right of companies like this to even exist. IMO
The case under advisement by Judge Pumfrey is really about PR. Good PR will not make Idcc and bad PR will not break it. We await news of a new licensee which is where the real substance is. Let's not be taken in by this Nokia feint.
Between 3:12 P.M. and 3:18 P.M. approx. 225,000 shares were sold and the price dropped 56 cents. This means 2 things to me: Institutions were selling and Idcc was letting the price drop. This might mean that Idcc felt constrained from buying because of impending good news or that they just decided to take the afternoon off.
Often there is a selling climax before a stock moves up. Since I really doubt that any leak of unsuspected bad news triggered today's drop, I attribute it to pent up selling pressure which just exploded in a chain reaction. Now that we have gotten this out of the system, we can move ahead. We will, however, need some good news or at least news of some action taken by Idcc against infringers in order to fill the gap. Sitting and waiting quarter after quarter while no new licensees appear will not be a good strategy for the near term or the long term.IMO
Huge volume. Longs have been waiting patiently, many on margin. They just got tired of waiting and sold. They are about done now. The least bit of good news brings new buyers back into the market puts this stock right up again and beyond where it was. Hold on tight. This is a real roller coaster.
I believe we are seeing some margin selling today. Unless there is an announcement of a new licensee(even a second tier one)soon, there will be no stimulus on the buy side. It may be necessary to initiate an infringement suit against one of the more blatent offenders. It may at least get their attention.
If Idcc licenses a triggering oem for 3G and still needs another arbitration before getting paid by Nok, many of the same issues will have already been decided in the first arbitration which concerned 2G. This would make for a quick arbitration and decision concerning 3G. Subsequent appeals of the 3G arbitration decision would then put a spotlite on Nok's transparent abusive delaying stategy and might indeed be met with sanctions by the courts if the courts had not already used sanctions in the present set of appeals over 2G.
Posted on the frame of my computer screen is a reminder that "NOK WILL DELAY THROUGH LITIGATION IN EVERY POSSIBLE INSTANCE" So far this has consistantly been proven true. I will thus await not only the results of the second arbitration (to set a rate) but Nok's appeal also of that ICC decision(when it is announced) to the U.S. courts. Nok's mockery of the arbitration process will go on IMO until they are sanctioned.
IMO Nok's appeal is not primarily about overturning the binding arbitration decision but about delaying the payments as long as possible. The multiple purposes of this delay are to gain some profit by retaining assets as long as possible(the interest is only 5%) and to weaken Idcc.(i.e. prevent Idcc from making timely acquisitions) Also the delay increases Nok's leverage in potential further negotiations to lessen the award and to have Idcc accept less for 3G patents. Also, making an example of Idcc enhances Nok's leadership role with other oem's in its publicly announced recommendations that they get tough with those who would seek to collect patent royalties.(i.e.have a cap on royalties) The mediation itself might be introducing some further delay into the process. Insofar as it does, it satisfies Nok's goals.
Idcc and Nok entered into a contractual agreement to abide by an arbitration decision. Now Nok deceitfully tries to abuse our court system in an effort to nullify the contract. Idcc not only has a right but a duty to ask for sanctions to put an end to this type of abuse.
Ghors: It has been mentioned that after losing their appeal to the second cicuit, Nok might try to further delay paying by appealing to the supreme court. This case from the 11th circuit might give Nok pause on that strategy. If the supreme court did take the case, it might be with the purpose of defining the limits of frivolous appeals of arbitration. This could be an embarassment to Nok.
Ghors: Even if the monetary benefits of asking for sanctions might be small, it would be worthwhile to have ajudge publicly chastise Nok for its attempts to undermine the arbitration process.
Idcc strategy in doing 100 million dollar buyback : Idcc has some interesting decisions to make. They are sitting on a lot of cash and this will soon grow even larger. This is the time for some aggressive acquisitions, possibly a manufacturing facility for its own chips. These acquisitions are going to take a lot of time in the shopping and negotiating phases. In the meantime you've got to believe there are one or more companies looking at Idcc for a potential hostile take over bid. To sit with a large amount of cash makes Idcc vulnerable to one of these bids which would be partially paid for with their own cash. No way management is going to let that happen. By doing buybacks now and in the future, Idcc helps prevent this from happening. It can take its time with aquisitions and use its purchased shares as currency when the time comes to do a deal.
The settlement between RIM and NTP is good news for Idcc. Rim has licensed with Idcc for 2G but not 3G. It is time that they licensed for 3G.If they had played fair with NTP from the beginning, they would not have had to settle for over $600 million and they would have saved a lot of legal fees to boot.
Some of Nok's co-conspirators are willfully infringing on Idcc patents. Nok would like to keep alive the issue of essentiality of these patents to assuage the fears of these co-conspirators that they might be liable for treble damages for their infringement.
Nok's strategy in DE seems to be to use this court and the litigation against Idcc as a reconnaissance effort. They can glean from these proceedings an idea of which tactics can be most effective in their upcoming dispute with Qcom. They can then use this as a demonstation of how to most effectively abuse the U.S. legal system and make a mockery of its courts and justices.
Tonbar: IMO Intellectual property, when it is used without a licence, is stolen property. When a wireless network provider traffics in cell phones built with stolen property, the network becomes an accessory in this theft.
Cingular is a service provider and not an oem. Although it is customary for IPR to paid for by the oem, I do not believe that Cingular would be like to be known as a company which purchases and sells goods made by an oem, which has a policy of using the IPR of an American company and refusing to pay for it.
Were on the defense in DE and on the defense in the U.K. After these have run their course, don't you think its time we get our turn to go on offence?
Ghors: I agree that if the circuit court rules that the Nok appeal of the district court confirmation of the tribunal decision on the binding arbitration is frivolous, it would result in only a relatively small award to Idcc. Neverthless I think that such a circuit court ruling would not be helpful to Nokia's reputation and it might impede Nokia in their strategy to portray Idcc in a negative light. This latter effect might be more significant than the monetary award.
OldDude:"determination to prevail against all odds through iron willed perseverance" Are you sure you weren't reading about Adolph Hitler? It didn't work for him and I doubt that it will work for Jorma Ollila either.
Ericy would be the next logical licensee."The "integrity comment(regarding Ericy) was made by Howard Goldberg during the March 17, 2003 conference call. Here is the comment Goldberg made:
HOWARD GOLDBERG: We're very focused on what is included, as well as what is not presently included within the scope of the Ericsson and Sony Ericsson license agreements. We have established operating protocols with them. They certainly understand that situation and they understand that InterDigital is going to be around for a while.
But, more importantly, we're developing a framework of trust and a framework of - a relationship framework and the ability to talk through issues, as opposed to what we faced in the past. So we took the clear decision to resolve the issues that were under litigation. Which we had a mandate, we had certain pressures to do that, and we wanted to be able to resolve that issue first.
Having done that, I believe that there is a positive framework going forward. And with a company that has a lot of integrity. And I believe that in this new environment going forward, we will be able to resolve those issues."
" But, remember that any counterclaim we filed we would have to prosecute...i.e,. it would cost time and money. So, there is a cost/benefit analysis" There is little doubt that Nok's actions, at least some of them illegal or in violation of the 1999 PLA, have cost Idcc hundreds of millions in lost business. Perhaps the cost/benefit analysis would indicate that pursuing a strong counterclaim makes good sense.
Why did Idcc hire a high profile plaintiff attorney if all they had in mind was to defend itself against a weak complaint by Nok in DE? Something doesn't add up here
Its justified for us Idcc longs to feel upset and even angry at the latest Nok action to use the legal system to stall. However, at this level, where hundreds of millions of dollars are involved, its not personal. Its just business. Nok did what it had to do in appealing and now Idcc should do what it has to do in filing a strongly worded counterclaim in DE. In the meantime negotiations go on and there could be a settlement at any time. Idcc will put their efforts to collect the Nok 2G binding arbitration award on the backburner and will put their efforts to sign Ericy or Mot for 3G on the frontburner. There is a reasonable chance that one or both of these will be successful, using the same kind of deal agreed to by LG, thereby breaking up the cartel and triggering Nok for 3G.
Idcc has established itself as a discount purveyer of telecom ipr. You might say that we are the Walmart of telecom ipr. There's nothing wrong with that. Perhaps China might want to join the parade.
Until now manufacturig asic's with our ipr in them was too expensive. With the LG money in hand, this possibility now presents itself. This would be done, not to profit from the chips but to encourage oem's to license our ipr.
"OT:Question..Can InterDigital be the INDEMNIFIER? Nokia may be claiming that IDCC has indemnified them from Qualcomm's litigation by virtue of their 2G license with InterDigital.."
NO WAY! Idcc was in no position to indemnify anyone. The indemnifier is either QCOM or NOK and QCOM has publicly denied it.IMO
A problem with the legal system is the ability of well heeled litigants to defeat poorer litigants simply by driving up the costs of the litigation. A potential way of blunting this is to have the judge rate the case on a plausibility scale from e.g. zero to ten. If, in the opinion of the judge, a case turns out to be VERY implausible, the judge could give it a zero or a 1 rating and the losing party would have to pay ALL the legal costs.
L2V: To a non-techie like myself, this means that Idcc is now saying to prospective customers: "We are not going to simply collect royalty from you for the use of our patents. We are going to help you with the entire technology for you to make a superior standards compliant phone and we are going to give you technical support for any problems that come up during the development and roll out." Even I can see the advantages in that.
Rimm was insisting on the right to sublicense the NTP ipr and that was the dealbreaker for them
"Why did I think this arb with Sam would not be necessary and they'd rely on the Nok decision for their rates?"
They will rely on Nok for their rates for 2G. The arbitration was on the far fetched theory that Sam should also get the same rates as Nok for 3G when they have never shown the courtesy of signing a 3G license with Idcc but preferred to infringe.
We have never been told who the indemnifier is. Speculation centered around Nok or Qcomm. Qcom insisted it was not them.
Ronnie:
We believed that Ericy,"a company of integrity", would license for 3G when it was determined that they were a trigger for Nok, their "competitor". The theory was that Ericy did not want to be the only ones who paid. That Ericy was a trigger was decided by the arbitration panel and recently by the court. So what now is keeping them them from signing? We now see a conspiracy lead by Nok to discourage anyone from paying. We need to intensify negotiations with Ericy and sue them if necessary. As long as Ericy and Nok(the chief perpetrator) are out of the fold, so will everyone else be out.