Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
Likely you're right, dws. It's interesting for all who over the years have "hated" QCOM, and argued that one had to pick either IDCC or QCOM, to now see that IDCC and QCOM are under the same attack, and IDCC needs QCOM, Ericsson,and other inventors who license their wireless IPR, to wage a common existential war in defense of their patent licensing models.
Does IDCC have a licensing program for its WiFi patents? If so, does anyone have concerns about Monday's radical vote to define FRAND in the WiFi context?
So, the cash burn rate accelerates, and they're fighting an existential battle on multiple fronts? Litigation is only a sound business model for lawyers.
Your thoughts could have been stated in a time capsule message, buried 14 years ago. Got to give you credit for persistence, if not for insight.
That begs the question, glennymo, as to whether life would be easier for IDCC, if they hadn't abandoned their SlimChip production plans.
Completely different businesses, and models. Spreadtrum makes a product - chips. IDCC creates patents, and tries to license them.
Mickey, the MSFT/NOK deal will go through without any concern for a potential, speculative, future liability to IDCC for past, present, and future royalties. No doubt about it.
That PR is a rambling, hot mess. Management appears to be decompensating, into babbling incoherence. Pathetic. Every losing party, being carried out of the courtroom on a stretcher, vows to appeal and prevail.
Rather than blame the system, perhaps you should look no further than King Of Prussia.IDCC cherrypicked the patents in suit. Presumably, they were selected because they were deemed by management to be "essential" to the 3G standards practiced by the respondents. The ALJ, and now the ITC, found those patents to be valid, but not infringed by the subject 3G products. Perhaps management doesn't understand what "essential" means.
Data, there's no way they're getting back into the business of competing with their licensees. The money losing CDMA handset division, which they gladly offed to Kyocera more than a decade ago, was only originated in the first place to seed and prove the market for CDMA during the Holy Wars. If they do take an equity position with Cerberus and others, it is for the patents and possibly the back-end, as well as solidifying their customer/licensee as a BB and CPU purchaser. Similar investments have been made with HTC, Sharp, and others, on a very limited basis. The shareholders would burn down Wireless Valley, if Qualcomm re-entered the handset business.
No it wouldn't.
I'm an IDCC guy, too. Don't get me started on the Apple license, as a "what not to do" licensing model.
The problem is, after the 34 days have passed, there will be further litigation and appeals, no matter the outcome. Litigation as a business model is inherently frustrating, and problematic.
Appeals need to be based upon legal errors, like granting or denial of motions by judges,erroneous Markman rulings, improper jury instructions, or erroneous evidentiary rulings. Findings of fact by the jury are overturned only when they are caused by erroneous rulings by the trial court. PRKR won far more favorable rulings than Qualcomm, and prevailed on liability, so if error is found, it is more likely that it benefited PRKR and prejudiced QCOM. Patent appeals go the the conservative Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, in Washington, D.C., a court very sophisticated in patent issues, and not favorably disposed to "non-practicing entities" like PRKR.
Given the recent SCOTUS opinion tightening the standard for obtaining an injunction (EBAY v MercExchange), there is no way that PRKR, a NPE, will obtain one in this case. And contrary to your assertion, Qualcomm will appeal the verdict, and has an excellent chance for reversal. Worst case scenario, the amount of damages awarded ($173 mil) mean nothing to them, but everything to PRKR.
Hint - neither has any jurisdiction outside the U.S and Federal territories.
What court has the jurisdiction to ban sales of products worldwide, Mickey?
You're dreaming, not investing, if you think anyone will pay to acquire this litigation stock, before bankruptcy.
Business is complicated for those who actually make products. Qualcomm has long term licensing agreements and patent peace with all of the major and most minor companies in the world. They are hardly in hot water. But you digress from your problem. Instead of getting a willful infringement verdict of $500 mil, that could be trebled, PRKR got a $173 mil verdict, that will be appealed, but not trebled. Since the outcome for PRKR is in doubt, and the damages are small by QCOM standards, and finite, a $500 mil market cap for a litigation stock without any other discernible business is unreasonable, and entirely speculative. Who's going to finance the PRKR appeal? Probably another secondary offering, with yet further dilution.
Sorry, but all they won was a trial verdict, and a judgment for $173 mil, but not "billions". Far short of all the pumping, and years away from seeing a dime, if at all. Far from over, and financially insignificant, no matter how the post-judgment motions, and appeal, are resolved.
PRKR got lucky in front of a home town lay jury. When the trial judge and appellate court get through with them, they will be lucky to have any verdict left at all. The Supreme Court has recently stiffened the standard for "willful infringement", thus resulting in the jury instruction that wouldn't allow even a sympathetic jury to find for PRKR. The law is tightening against NPE's like PRKR, not making it easier for them to troll.
If there ever is a settlement, it will surely be less than the jury verdict, due to the risk of PRKR losing the appeal, and the time/value of money. QCOM can wait forever, as $173 mil is a rounding error to their $30 bil in cash. What is PRKR's staying power?
Actually, they have received no money thus far. They will get post-judgment motions, followed by years of appeals, if necessary. Don't spend the money, in the meantime.
Once again, it's IDCC Amateur Hour. The company lawyers must have read the opinion already, since it's even available to everyone on the web. If the reason for adjourning the cc without date were true, why was it scheduled for 7/2 in the first place? Obviously, the company is trying to decide what to say, and how to say it. Poor crisis management.
Intel was not ignorant; IDCC was desperate. Intel culled only the patents it wanted, and refused to bid, or placed a low ball bid, on the full portfolio. I find no reason to rejoice that the company is selling off its assets to generate short term sugar highs, eventually leaving a carcass for scavengers.
Blaming the judicial system for this loss is is a deflective act of self-delusion. Look instead to the quality, not the quantity, of the patents involved, and the touts who oversold the reality. Licensing has always been a struggle for IDCC. Having no products to sell, since the SlimChip money pit was wisely abandoned, the business model has been predicated upon threatening litigation, since most manufacturers who were privy to IDCC's portfolio were not sufficiently impressed to pay the tariff. The inability to sell the company was more than a canary in the mine. And now, without being able to prove that one claim of one selected, valid patent was infringed, those who have balked at signing have been emboldened. IDCC has been at this game for decades, and lacks the credibility necessary to back up its threats. "This time I really mean it" simply won't cut it.
You make it sound like IDCC has leverage, which it obviously does not. GOOGLE bought Motorola Mobility, and doesn't need IDCC. Intel bought what it wanted from IDCC. Qualcomm has its licenses already, use one patent and pay for all, so IDCC's portfolio is superfluous to them. Maybe the Chinese, Huawei or ZTE, would pay some money, but they passed when the company was put up for sale, and have now defeated IDCC's claims before the ITC. Not likely they will bail us out.
The problem is that just as a win would have encouraged licensing negotiations, this loss discourages them. Combined with the inability to sell the complete portfolio, despite being shopped to NDA buyers, and the subsequent sale of patent families that were culled from the trove, IDCC has become a litigation lottery ticket. 14 years after being tagged the "Baby QCOM",IDCC is still fighting to be taken seriously, and losing. While mobile explodes with growth globally, IDCC's licensing base and future prospects continue to shrink. Merritt was talking up a win, ever since the hearing ended. Without street credibility, the market will be cruel, and many stalwart investors have died or gone broke along the way.
Max, you're changing the subject. All I did was refute your claim that any standards board has determined that any IDCC patents are "essential". Those who have licensed with IDCC determined that the cost of doing so was less than the cost and risk of litigating. Those who litigated in the current ITC proceeding have won in the trial court, subject to appeals to the Commission and/or the Court Of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and so far have prevailed. IDCC has thus far failed to prove the patents in suit at the ITC were infringed, and therefore essential.
No "standards board" determines which patents are essential, and which are not. The patent owner declares the patents to be standards' essential, but that doesn't make them so, without agreement or proof. IDCC claims they were essential patents, but the ALJ at the ITC implicitly found they were not.
That's simply silly. Qualcomm is the largest fabless chip manufacturer in the world. InterDigital sells no chips.
Wrong. They only fought over license renewal terms, for a few years.
Thanks, D.R. Your recap is always appreciated.
Olddog's right, and Mickey's wrong. You need to spend a night at the Holiday Inn Express, Mickey, before playing lawyer.
Ericsson is out of the handset business, and exited their JV with Sony on 2/16/12.Sony owns the whole thing now, so Ericsson is not involved in any aspect of the new JV with IDCC. On a positive note, it's nice to see IDCC doing some business with credible players.
The PR wording doesn't suggest any bump in rate for RIMM 4G. Is that rate lower, the same, or higher? Would be nice to know.
How old is that? Apple at $395.77?
It's way beyond "opinion", Mickey. InterDigital has never claimed what you have opined, and the markets (both corporate and stock) have never inferred it. You're free to wear your blinders. How's that worked for you in the 90's, 00's, and 10's? You've been wrong for three decades straight. That's at least consistency.
Thus is the crux of your continued problem. It's not the number of declared patents that matter;rather, it is a portfolio's commercial value. That's determined by arms length negotiations between sophisticated and informed corporations, or the courts. During the three decades I've owned QCOM and IDCC, you've failed to know what you don't know.
All judges want the parties to settle. Less work for them, less chance of criticism, and no opportunity for their legal rulings to be reviewed on appeal.
Greg, your historical analogy to "tort deform" is aptly stated. That well sums up the protectionist drumbeat, that has systematically deprived our clients from fair access to the courts, to redress injuries caused by the more powerful and better connected interest groups. I hope the past is not prologue to the future, but your concerns are well worth considering. And then they came for the IPR holders, whom they dehumanized by labeling them as "patent trolls".