Jmpaesq, as far as the Ericsson rate goes, that .4% was an estimate calculated by one of our esteemed board members (I can't remember who) when the Ericsson settlement was announced, trying to take into consideration the sales over the years. Almost impossible for an outsider looking in to calculate the actual rate, though.

The scenario and all of the other numbers I threw out are sheer speculation on my part. The only thing I can fall back on is that history has a tendency of repeating itself. If you look at IDCC's history, they have always fallen far short of the mark when it comes to what they say is owed to them and what they are able to collect. At least this time if they do fall short, I won't feel like they pulled the wool over me.

artk

IDCC and Nokia may be in a heated negotiation on what the royalty rate is for 2G. IDCC is asking .5%, saying that is what the rate for Ericcson. Nokia countered by saying that is the rate in 2003 onward, but the settlement between IDCC and Ericsson works out to around a .25% rate (taking interest out of the discounted .40% settlement) for the "infringing years". Nokia is arguing that is what their rate for the time prior to the Ericcson settlement should be.

This would cut IDCC's estimates that they said they should receive from Nokia and Samsung in half. You can probably discount an additional 25% because Nokia and Samsung will be able to whittle down the amount of sales IDCC estimated.

Instead of 100-120 million that IDCC said Nokia owes, I believe IDCC will get 30-40 million. That's still a nice chunk of money coming in, but it is not the instant windfall that IDCC has lead all to believe.

Even at these lower amounts, the stock should still react positively to the news, and is still a good investment.

I hope I am setting my expectations low so that they are either met, or I am pleasantly surprised.

Of course, this is all JMHO...

DataRox, very interesting article about Kyocera. I guess everyone else missed it because of all the arguments going on right now.

In the past this type of article would have been dissected down to the last word, with a hundred different scenarios of how IDCC would benefit from Kyocera moving into the GSM market. Of course, all of the speculation would most likely have been wrong, but it is sure a lot more interesting reading than all of the cat fights going on now.

artk

A lot of good is coming from the Options vote, no matter the outcome. I believe management has gotten a wake-up slap in the face and I hope it makes them realize that, yes, they do need to answer to the shareholders.

Then again, maybe I'm the one who needs the wake-up slap in the face, and IDCC's management will continue to do whatever they want to do.

JimLur, if you do go your own way, I just want to say thank you for all of the different boards you have created throughout the years and the incredible experience it has been!

ArtK

Memphis great post! I think we should all follow Memphis's lead. Even though he may end up losing money because of today's pr, he is not letting the PR sway what he believes is right for the long-term good of the company.

Disclaimer: I haven't decided Yes or No yet, am leaning towards No. It would send a strong message to management that they need to be accountable to the shareholders, but I don't believe that it would put IDCC in any short-term binds. The options they still have available to be issued should be more than enough to carry them over until they can prove to me that they do indeed need to issue more options.

Alley, also nice to see when the In-Play mentions shorts, just a little more pressure.

10:23AM Interdigital Comm moves to new 52-wk high post-earnings; short-interest 10% (IDCC) 26.07 +1.53:

Mickey, sounds good to me. Next two weeks should be very interesting, like someone else (I think it was DR)just said, time to buckle up!

UPDATE: HOP-ON.COM, INC. (OTCBB: HPON) - TIME TO HOP OFF?
April 22, 2003

Hop-On.com, Inc. (Pink Sheets: HPON), which has been vigorously promoting its plan to market a disposable cell phone for at least two years, is going to need a new leader. Peter Michaels, the Company's publicity-minded Chief Executive Officer stepped down on April 21, 2003, just days after he was arrested and charged with defrauding investors in connection with an online gambling company called World Wide Web Casinos. (WWWC).

Michaels and four other men were named in a federal indictment, filed in the Southern District of California, and unsealed on April 17th. Prosecutors allege that the defendants raised $12 to $15 million for WWWC by orchestrating an aggressive telemarketing scheme and issuing online press releases that created "a veneer of legitimacy for WWWC and affiliated companies." The indictment charges that Michaels received a portion of those funds, even though investors were told that he would serve without compensation until WWWC had adequate cash flow to pay salaries.

The indictment does not relate to Michaels conduct at Hop-On, which has issued numerous press releases promoting its disposable cell phone. Despite the Company's aggressive promotional campaign, only a handful of the disposable phones have reached the marketplace.

Hop-On's financial condition remains a mystery to investors. The Company, which trades on the Pink Sheets, has been promising for some time to file audited financial statements as a prelude to seeking listing on the Over the Counter Bulletin Board. On August 9, 2002 Hop-On issued a press release claiming it had retained the accounting firm of Spector & Wong to conduct the necessary audit, and expected to comply with reporting requirements by the end of 2002. We attempted, without success, to locate the accounting firm of Spector & Wong. As of April 21, 2003, Hop-On had not filed any audited financial statements with the SEC.

Michaels full court press on behalf of Hop-On has created a high profile for the tiny company. The disposable cell phone has been featured on several televised reports and in a number of magazines, including Time, which called it one of the "inventions of 2001." At the time of the Time article, the Company had yet to produce the product. StockPatrol.com published a series of articles on Hop-On in April 2002, noting, among other things, several significant discrepancies in the Hop-On press releases (See Hop-On. Com, Inc. - Trouble in River City and Hop-On.com, Inc. - Disposable Businesses).

Since the publication of our initial articles, Hop-On has continued to issue press releases announcing everything from its receipt of routine regulatory and industry-related approvals, to agreements with telephone service carriers and air-time resellers.

The Company also claims to have established international operations. In November 2002, Hop-On announced the opening of an office in China and the appointment of an individual named David Chow as Vice President of Asian Operations. Since the Company does not file public reports with the SEC it is impossible for investors to determine the extent of those Asian operations.

Similarly, on April 4, 2002, the Company claimed that it had entered into an exclusive distributorship agreement with a Greek company. Although the Company said the distributorship would be worth approximately $25 million annually, and that Hop-On would receive a $1 million distribution fee, there is no way for investors to determine whether the Company ever realized any revenues from the project. In that same vein, investors do not have access to information that would verify whether Hop-On began shipping phones to Greece within "3 to 4 months" as the April 4, 2002 press release promised.

In fact, the only phones that Hop-On seems to have shipped so far are a handful of units that were sold through three Walgreen drug stores in late 2002. The Company announced those sales in a press release declaring that its phones were "now available to consumers." In a limited sense that was true; approximately 200 of the disposable phones were sold in Southern California.

The most recent announcement of potential sales came on April 14, 2003, when Hop-On stated that it had received a Letter of Intent for the purchase of two million phones from a state run telecommunications carrier in India. As with many of the Hop-On releases, details were sparse. The Company did not reveal any terms of the deal, say how it would pay for the manufacture of the two million units, or provide any timetable for delivery.

Will those plans materialize, or will they be derailed by the Michaels' arrest? Although the charges do not relate to Hop-On, they paint an unsettling picture of Michaels, who allegedly used shareholder funds to pay his credit card bills and spent $131,000 on a yacht. In addition, WWWC purportedly signed a $500,000 software agreement with another firm secretly controlled by Michaels.

WWWC was shut down three years ago after a raid by California investigators.

Hop-On says it plans to name a replacement for Michaels. In the interim, it says the Company is being run by its "existing staff and executive team." As often seems to be the case with Hop-On, investors have been left to guess as to the identities of those individuals.

©2003 Stock Patrol.com. All rights reserved.

EconEli, while I have not made up my mind about the Stock Incentive Program, I believe that there is some misinformation floating around on this board about the option strike prices and maybe you can help clear it up for me.

Correct me if I am wrong, but the "strike price" of the Incentive Options is usually set at the time they are issued to an employee, based on the current price. For example, if options were given to an employee today, they would not be $4 or $5 options, but $20 or more. I believe the only way options would issued at $4 and $5 in the future is if the share price goes back down to those levels again.

I believe that in the examples ST used, the options were issued when IDCC was well below 10, and that is a very reasonable assumption if you look at IDCC's historical price chart. Of course the options are worth significantly more money now, but if you look at the stock price and the strike price when they were originally issued, I believe you will find only a small difference.

thanks,

artk

Mschere, I think (or at least hope) you are exaggerating about the current IDCC conditions. If IDCC is in a position that arbitration would put them in the serious bind that you describe (alter business plans, lay off people, etc...) you know darn well that Nokia and Samsung would love to have a long drawn out arbitration so they can force IDCC to settle for pennies on the dollar once again.

I don't believe that is the case, though. IDCC still has a lot of green in their war chest to tide them over long enough to not have to settle for less. I think IDCC will be okay... soon we'll all be okay. (sorry, those damn cell phone commercials are so quotable)

idcc2003, from a different perspective, if shorts are sharp (and many on this board will say they're not) they would probably not be entering IDCC at this point.

My crystal ball says that we'll probably see a couple points up just on hype before Earnings and ASM, possible above 25. If IDCC has to answer that NOK and Samsung have not yet been resolved, IDCC will slide back down to the low 20's rather quickly. If, on the other hand, IDCC comes out and says that NOK and Samsung have already transferred large amounts of green to IDCC, it's a whole new ballgame.

If I did play IDCC short, now would not be the time to be buying in. I'd be long right now or in vulture mode waiting.

Think back on IDCC's history, how many times has the price gone up after earnings were announced when there were such high expectations?

Then again, maybe I give shorts too much credit... maybe they are buying in now.

DataRox, any comments or ideas on Cisco's phone? I envision that sooner or later Cisco will (if they haven't already) combine this with a cell phone, so that when an employee is in the office, the phone uses the WiFi VoIP. When the user is in a dead spot or outside the office, the phone would automatically switch to cellular mode. This type of setup will offer substantial savings, and the phone companies aren't going to like it one bit.

Cisco to Offer Wireless Phones for Businesses

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq:CSCO - news) said on Monday it will begin selling mobile telephones based on a short-range wireless (news - web sites) technology, as part of its efforts to boost sales of systems that use Internet technology for phone calls.

Cisco, the No. 1 maker of equipment that directs Internet traffic, has targeted wireless local area networks and Internet phone calling, known as IP telephony, as growth markets. The San Jose, California-based company already dominates in sales of networking gear to corporations.

The new phone, which is in customer trials now and will be widely available in June, is designed to work within a corporate campus. It will use the local wireless standard known as WiFi to connect callers to a Web-based phone network, allowing them to roam around without missing phone calls.

"It really extends the key benefits of IP telephony in the areas of productivity for employees, more mobility for the enterprise (news - web sites) users," Marthin De Beer, a Cisco vice president, said in a telephone interview.

Companies such as Cisco, Canada's Nortel Networks Corp. (NYSE:NT - news) (Toronto:NT.TO - news) and Avaya Inc. (NYSE:AV - news) promise that putting phone and computer connections on the same network can cut costs and give employees new options, such as reading voicemail and listening to e-mails.

IP telephony is the evolution of a concept computer users first explored some five years ago to make cheaper phone calls over scratchy Web connections. Equipment makers hope it helps boost spending at a time when traditional phone carriers and corporate customers have drastically cut back on investments in networks.

The IP telephony market is estimated to grow to $8 billion by 2007 from $1 billion this year, De Beer said.

The new wireless phone will work inside such businesses as hospitals, warehouses, and retail environments, using Cisco networking equipment and WiFi "hot spots," or the area of coverage for the wireless network, he said. It will allow workers to keep one number as they move among offices or buildings.

The new phone will carry a list price of $595, but is expected to sell for about $400, Cisco said. Cisco will use contract manufacturers to do some of the design and assembly of the phone, but declined to elaborate.

Cisco also introduced low-cost traditional wireline phone models that compete more directly with Nortel and Avaya, analysts said.

Companies will spend for improvements in employee productivity, as even a 2 percent increase can translate to very high dollar return on investment, De Beer said.

Analysts have said, however, that companies will not transfer en masse to Internet phone gear until customers can mix and match phones from different companies, something not yet possible.

MyDime, I think you are correct. I wanted to see what the reasoning was to his theory and his response allowed me to draw my own conclusions.

Once, if you're reading this, appreciate your reply, it was sufficient enough that I have no further questions, and no opinions either way on a "mass exodus" of management.

thanks,

artk

Once, you say "another mass exodus", which implies that there was a mass exodus of significant proportions in previous history. Can you provide details on when this last mass exodus occurred, what percentage of management left during the last mass exodus, and provide names if possible?

Thanks

Witchhollow, am I looking at the same chart you are? Only thing I see is a tight trading range low of 21.5 and high of 21.89, less than 2% difference between the high and low for the day.

If the MM's really wanted to get everyone shaking, we would be seeing one or two point swings, wouldn't we?

Remember the good ol' days when the yo yo meant several points up and down?

OT: wazoo, that is bullish indeed, the first sign I have seen to dip into Margin!

Randomwalk, thanks for posting the Hop-On news. Looks like the concerns I raised about the credibility of Hop-On when IDCC's license agreement was announced were right on the money.

It really bothered me at the time because IDCC hadn't announced any licenses and then came out with one that was with a less than reputable company.

Hop-On's situation shouldn't have any adverse effect on IDCC, but I sure hope nobody in management has gotten or gets any bonuses as a result of the Hop-On license until Hop-On actually sells some phones and forks over some licensing fees.

artk

Hi Rich, thanks for the thoughts. You say that you are "extremely disappointed with results of the E settlement and the way the stock reacted to it". I can't disagree with you on the first part of it, the E settlement as it stands now is a far cry from what we were expecting.

Would you mind giving us your opinion on how the stock should have reacted to it? What value would you set right now?

Personally, I think it the price is heavily discounted because IDCC has never been able to deliver on the dollar amounts that they declare. The street is taking into consideration past history such as NEC (settling for 58 million instead of the 400 million IDCC figure), Samsung (IDCC claimed 60 million past due royalties as of March 2002 only to see that vaporize into 500k for 2001 and unknown for 2002), Ericsson (IDCC never put a figure on it, but the 58 million settlement doesn't quite compute to a 10 year litigation).

Past history doesn't give the Street a lot of confidence that IDCC will see the figures they are claiming now for Nokia and Samsung... Can IDCC come through this time or will they have to settle for pennies on the dollar as in almost every past situation.

Thanks,

artk

DataRox and all, what do you thing of Samsung's CDMA2000 chip?

Any wild guesses as to whether or not this chip might include IDCC IPR, any royalties to IDCC as a result? Or is Samsung going to end up paying royalty rates only to Qualcomm and others?

About ISCO trial loss, sorry I didn't realize a couple on this board invested heavily in ISCO. Didn't mean to offend anyone, just was trying to point out that if IDCC went to trial and lost, where would the company be now?

Somehow IDCC's settlement with ERICY sure looks like a good thing now.

ISCO, perfect example of why IDCC settled instead of going to court.

Isco's down 37% right now.

ISCO International Announces Jury Verdict in Patent Infringement Trial Against Superconductor Technologies, Inc.
Thursday April 3, 1:40 pm ET

MT. PROSPECT, Ill., April 3 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- ISCO International, Inc. (Amex: ISO - News), a leading supplier of interference-management solutions for the wireless and cellular industry, announces the jury verdict related to the recent patent infringement allegation against Superconductor Technologies, Inc. and its wholly-owned subsidiary, Conductus, Inc. (STI).

The jury agreed with STI's argument that ISCO's patent (U.S. Patent No. 6,263,215, entitled "Cryoelectronically Cooled Receiver Front End for Mobile Radio Systems") was invalid and unenforceable and that its Superfilter® III product is not infringing. The jury also awarded STI $3.87MM against ISCO as damages for what STI claimed to be unfair competition on the part of ISCO.

"We are shocked by the jury's decision," said Dr. Amr Abdelmonem, CEO of ISCO International. "We will be discussing with counsel our options for overturning the verdict."

10Ks have to emphasize the risks, so taking this bias into account, IMO the company's future with 3G is much stronger than any of the risks identified in the 10K

Corp_Buyer, IMHO thats the quote of the day, thanks for throwing in a voice of reason.

artk

OT: sjratty, thanks for your most recent post, we should start going up again. IDCC is being strongly influenced by the sjratty effect today, maybe I should be buying and selling on your posts!

Looks like you were right Data, I'll probably be able to pick up shares a lot cheaper on Monday!

L2V, thanks. Doesn't the Form 4 have to disclose the actual number of stocks held outright? If so, that means Howard has over 300,000 exercisable options?

If I were Howard, I'd start exercising some of those options and turning into actual shares. Then again, he can probably afford a darn good accountant and doesn't have to worry about holding onto stocks for a year to get the lower tax rate.

Amazing those grants were issued May 18, 1993, Howard's been waiting for a long time to cash these in. I know many of us would have preferred that he held onto the shares instead of taking the money, but he still has over 60k more, with who knows how much more coming in. If I were in his shoes, I'd probably do the same thing.

Have a good weekend all!

Good news, I placed a limit order in at 22.75 when the price was at 22.76, to make sure that's the bottom. It was only a small order, but lately the way the MM's have been playing their games, my orders haven't gotten executed and then I have watched the price go right back up.

Of course, I could just put my order in for a penny or two more, but what would the fun in that be?

And of course, by posting this information, I have literally ensured that my order will get filled.

Really, I'm not superstitious or anything.

Good luck to all in the coming week. Also thoughts and wishes to all the Coalition troops and Iraqi civilians, it's hard to comprehend what kind of hell storm they're in, media coverage can't even begin to paint the real picture.

Plumear, that's what I'm thinking too. By specifically excluding "3g compliant products" from the 2g agreement, it sure sounds to me like they have a 3g agreement in place which makes up for any 2g.

ALL Please stop replying to AMS. Either that or take it to another board.

Geez, I wonder if some of you are being paid by InvestorHub to coerce us all into becoming paying members so that we can use filtering (just kidding Matt and Bob).

Thanks,

artk

AMS, F6, can you two grow up? Please take your whiny little argument over to Raging Bull or somewhere else.

Thanks,

artk

Data_Rox, if Ericsson were to produce a 3g phone wouldn't it most likely be 2g compatible also? If so, it would make sense that the 3g phones are excluded so that Ericsson would not end up paying double to IDCC on the same phone, once for 2g and once for 3g?

That would imply that IDCC and Ericsson have a 3g license just about ready to go.

Thanks,

artk

Nohotin (or should I say Nostradamus), any predictions for today's close? You nailed it yesterday!

LongIdcc, thanks for the info!

Licensing obligation? I thought that was decided upon a long time ago, so it is old news. What would be new news is if they had determined the rates.

Gamco- HPON is mentioned in the April 2003 issue of Business 2.0, in an article called "The 101 Dumbest Moments in Business". They made it to Number 3 on the list for 2002.

Maybe IDCC realized that HPON could possibly be a viable company in the future, but for now, especially with the questionable past of HPON, it is better not to associate with HPON. That is JMHO.

There may be other reasons why HPON is not listed, one for example might be that IDCC doesn't expect revenue from HPON for a while. My understanding of the limited phones that they were able to sell last December were CDMA, which fell under their license from Qualcomm.

Could go over 2.5 million traded today, anyone else feel we may dip below 20 just briefly and then close very very strong?

Someone's in a hurry, it's been several months since we've seen upward movement like this without any announcements. Buy recommendations coming out soon?

Spider69 and Dagrinch, you are right that we should all make donations to the charities of our choice. When IDCC hits my personal levels I will donate not only in memory of my own personal family members, but also in memory of the loved ones lost by the IDCC board members.

After all, we have fought like brothers on this board, haven't we!