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Just as Cinderella had to get home before 12 or turn into a pumkin, there are a lot of shorts out there who have to get going before the 12th month(December 2004) or turn into something they wished they weren't. I wouldn't be surprised to see buying(to cover) over the next several months even without company stock repurchase programs.
Whizzeresq You stated, "We do have a wild card and that is Nokia's Motion to Vacate which is currently before the judge. If the judge were to issue a ruling that Nokia lost its Motion, IDCC should have a nice move."
It was my understanding that the motion was to REVERSE the previous vacating of the partial summary judgements. I also understood that this would be difficult for the judge to do since Idcc would have no chance to appeal the PSJ's unless the settlement with Ericy was set aside and the case reopened.
" KoP has its own way of doing things."
Things HAVE changed. Idcc is now standing firm and not making inferior settlements with infringers, which lead, inevitably, to future litigation. It is time now to test our WCDMA patents in court. If we have what we think we have, then licencees should sign on prior to their owing so much that they can't or won't come up with such large sums. I admit its a risky strategy, seeing what happened in the MOT case, but its a necessary one and this is the best time to bite the bullet.
Let's assume a worst case scenario: The Nok arb panel decides that Ericy is not a trigger so no rate is established. The Samsung arb is not about a trigger but about MFL. If there is no rate with Nok, the MFL agument won't kick in until a rate is established and it's lower than what Sam agreed to pay. Therefore, the Samsung arb would still probably come out in favor of Idcc being paid by Samsung according to their previous agreement with Idcc. IMO
I would hope that the royalty rate for Lucent after Idcc gets a court decision in their favor would be closer to a market rate than the rate that they give companies that sign up without the need for litigation.
I do not believe that judge Lynn has the authority to do that
Question: If, in the interest of expediting things, Idcc now chose to release the sealed documents on their own to the arbitration panel without them having to go through Judge Lynn (and assuming Ericy agreed to this) could they legally do that? If they could, this might explain why pacer hs not yet shown any requests to the court by the arbitrators for release of the sealed documents.
Jai I disagree. keeping a strong financial position is critical to providing a credible threat to infringers that legal measures can and will be taken. Lack of this is what made Tantivy sell out to Idcc IMO
Loop, your lucky. If you hadn't had a ruptured appendix, you probably would have sat around watching your computer screen and got something worse like a perforated ulcer.
Ed If that is true, why has Qcom been trying so hard to see CDMA triumph over WCDMA?
IMO Ericy will sign for 3G after they are recognised by the Nok-Idcc arbitration panel as a trigger for 2G. The one thing they don't want to do is to pay for 3G and have their arch competitor, Nok, not pay. Its better not to sue them now but to wait for the decision of the arbitration panel. In the unlikely event that things go wrong in arbitration, we would have to sue them then.
In retrospect, it is now obvious that Idcc made a big mistake in their 1999 agreement with Nok in not setting a rate but in relying on a "trigger" to set the rate.. It opened up the potential for Nok to dispute the "trigger" whoever the OEM might be and under whatever circumstances. We also agreed to MFL(much future litigation) deals. We are learning from the past and will sign no more deals like those. We are stronger financially. We can offer licenses with favorable rates to those who want to sign and lawsuits to those who still insist on infringing.
TC IMO it was an institution that unloaded all that stock in a few minutes. This is one of the downsides of institutional ownership. I have seen an instance when an institution dropped a million plus shares onto a thin market with no apparent concern for price and when there was no apparent emergency. As individuals, you and I can take risks for superior rewards that an institution may feel unable to take. I doubt that we will ever know the exact reason for their action, but it might be that they just felt they had too many shares and they wanted to sell some of them.
IMO Idcc has embarked on a new strategy. Give a favorable rate but demand licensing for the total package. This was acceptable to Sierra and I feel it will work with others.
Perception counts
The patent license agreement covers the sale of wireless terminal units and wireless modules built to Second Generation (2G and 2.5G) IS-136/GSM/GPRS/EDGE/IS-95B and all Third Generation (3G) WCDMA/cdma2000® standardsThere are lots of Sierra Wirelesses out there. We'll take all we can get.
It's deductive reasoning rather a confirmed fact. The evidentiary hearing won't be for another 10 months. A study of the contract would take far less time. If Ericy were not the trigger, there would be no reason to see the sealed docs. What else besides obtaining and studying the sealed docs would take so long?
Arb board is looking at sealed docs to see how Ericy set the rate in its settlement with Idcc. This tells me that the board accepts the fact that Ericy triggers the rate with Nok and they are trying to determine what a fair rate is.
In my experience, good luck falls on companies set up receive it. After all the DD and study of the fundamentals, something unexpected comes out of the blue and determines the future success of a growth company. This something must fall on fertile ground or it will not take hold. I believe Idcc is fertile ground and I am waiting for the event which will define its future.
Idcc chose Lu to sue because the infringement issues were clear. Idcc looked very closely at Tantivy IPR before buying the company. Idcc knew they were going to have to sue to get paid. I assume that F and J had input before the purchase. I would not be surprised to see Lu settle rather than go thru the expense and bad PR associated with an adverse result at trial. On the other hand, winning at trial would do a lot for Idcc's image.
Idcc has lost the skirmish with Nok over how the arbitrators should proceed. They have not lost the battle. The arbitrators have leaned towards Nok on the stalling issue. Perhaps they will agree with Idcc on the resolution of the dispute.
Marsala displayed his attitude towards Idcc by whispering his questions inaudibly and not speaking up even when repeatedly asked to. He seems to have something personal against Idcc and I don't take anything he says seriously.
I want to thank management for not rushing into bad deals to make Q4 look better and for not jerking around the books to enhance Q4 like so many companies have done in the past. I believe that most of the sellers knew too little about Idcc and failed to understand the relatively small significance of the Q4 earnings miss and thereby afforded a nice buying opportunity, which I used to add to my holdings.
The 8K might be interesting to Forbes Editors
Idcc needs to be aggressive and not wait for resolution of the Lu case but to use all avenues(including additional suits) to get 3G licensees. From 1999 to 2003, Nok pretended Idcc didn't exist and never mentioned us. We were very respectful and never called them on this. The Result : NOK did their level best to trash us in the end, even to the point of casting aspersions on our management.I should think we've had enough of that kind of treatment.
L2V If this is their business plan, I think its a good one. I would like it even more if they could find a way to get Nok, which signed a license back in 1999, to pay for 3G and then they could institute their plan for all new licensees from that point on. They could make an exception for Lu because of extenuating circumstances.
If Lu had been ready to pay for WCDMA, why wouldn't Idcc have run with this and triggered the setting of a royalty rate from Nok.
IDCC is a LONG term hold IMO. I do not expect the true value of IDCC to emerge for another five years. By this time I expect 3G to be king and IDCC IPR to be acknowledged, to be accepted, and to be paid for. By this time,IDCC truly has a chance to be a QCOM like success. Staying the course is vital.
I believe that Merritt was pretty sure of a deal with Lu for CDMA2000 that would close by the end of 2003. Then Lu decided that they wanted something in return, probably a very favorable deal for the rest of 3G. When Idcc refused, Lu reneged. The negotiations continued until recently when, with the CC coming soon, Idcc filed suit.
If idcc settles with Lu, they will have to arbitrate again with Nok about 3G. If they win in court, Nok will have to pay.
"Just a few months after it acquired the company, InterDigital Communications Corp.'s subsidiary Tantivy Communications Inc. said it filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Lucent Technologies Inc." This would imply that a suit has been in place for several months. If so, the Lucent was NOT the well known company referred to by Merritt in the last CC as one expected to license soon.
One of the named OEM's in the NOK contract may well be Lucent and when Lucent pays for 3G, might it not also trigger NOK payments?
An important advantage of arbitration as opposed to court proceedings is that it limits the time period necessary for resolution of a dispute. IMO Nok is trying its best to eliminate this advantage in its dispute with Idcc by stalling as much as possible and using time as a leveraging factor.
Idcc management read and reread the contract with Nok and if there was any doubt in their mind about Ericy being the trigger, they would not have spoken as they did after the settlement.IMO They are not stupid and I trust them in this matter.Nok does not want to pay and is digging deep to find ways to stall.
"When someone owes you a little money, he has a problem. When someone owes you a lot of money, you have a problem."(this is the situation with Nokia IMO) With 3G , let's not sit on our hands and let ourselves be owed a lot of money.
"Why has IDCC not initiated further litigation to bring 3G infringers to the table?"I believe this is because Idcc has had poor results from litigation in the past. We apparently had problems with our 2G IPR that no one wanted to discuss openly. The MOT case is one example. The Ericy case is another. This time I believe the quality and essentiality of our IPR is equal to the statements made by management.( If I did not believe this, I would not own the stock) If we can't license, then we need to litigate. No more licenses without royalties and no more upfront payments with nothing to follow. Its put up or shut up time for 3G. Let's roll.
Janet said that IDCC was still in a “number of active discussions”, involving substantive economic matters and “exchanging documents”. She mentioned that it usually takes a fairly long period of time to even get to the substantive economic phase of negotiations. Could it be that agreement to licence is more or less in place and now the parties can talk about royalty rates? This would seem to lend credence to what was discussed at the last CC. It seems that Idcc is willing to take its time and not be pressured into other than an equitable arrangement. Given the mistakes of the past, I would support this approach.
Call sellers need a thinly traded stock for purposes of manipulation. With the buying volume that has shown up recently on Idcc,it is too inefficient to play this stock even if they are naked. They may have to eventually enter the market and buy stock to cover the calls they have sold. This could help the stock on Monday.
Oct. 2000 CNBC interview of M.G was taped by me at the time. I listened to it again yesterday. I was surprised to hear M.G. say that the IDCC business plan(at that time) included MANUFACTURING chips. This has undoubtedly changed since 2000, but, in addition to the Infineon deal, I'm sure IDCC would welcome others.
M3S: QCOM has an established business model which many large and small payers seem to have accepted. I now believe that IDCC's best chance to break in is as a kind of discount competitor to QCOM. Otherwise, potential licencees may take the same tack with 3G as they did with 2G. i.e. ignore us and let us take them to court. Furthermore, even with 1.5% royalties, the market cap for IDCC could grow to where the shares could still rise to the triple digits.
M3S: I assume HCT got a royalty rate of about 1.5% with the right to use as much IPR as needed, non exclusive, non transferable and with no MFL clause. I believe this is the only type of licence that Idcc should be negotiating from here on in.