re: CDMA...bullwinkle, others do have IP for CDMA. Remember, CDMA, whether CDMA2000 or W-CDMA, is just a technology and many companies own IP for different aspects of CDMA. QCOM owned the lion's share for CDMAone and CDMA2000 hence they were in the driver's seat when it came to licensing and royalty agreements. The core patents that make any CDMA system work, for instance power control methods, belong to QCOM, so they're still in a great position for W-CDMA, as you can see from the many agreements which state that "Company X will pay QCOM the same amount for W-CDMA as they did for CDMAone and CDMA2000." However, there are some other big players in W-CDMA since the system side, as opposed to the air interface, is based heavily on GSM. And since someone like TI has an extensive GSM patent portfolio, QCOM needed to enter an agreement with TI which basically said each has full access to the other's patent portfolio, be it CDMA or GSM related, and neither has to pay the other for the use of these patents for the purpose of designing and selling ICs. However, the end product the IC goes into, whether QCOM makes it or TI makes it (or someone else), QCOM will still get a royalty from that sale based on the individual agreement QCOM entered into with the manufacturer of that product. That's where the "doubts" come into QCOM's future for many, if someone like TI can make an IC and potentially dominate the W-CDMA IC market, and QCOM will not receive any revenue/profits from the ICs but will only receive a royalty for the end sale, many feel QCOM will not stand to make the HUGE profits everyone projected years ago when they assumed QCOM will make every CDMA based IC from now til the end of time and will receive the same high royalty rate for the sale of any CDMA products.
Not everyone is in TI's postion however, they and QCOM benefit since they are simply patent holders and IC makers...they don't sell end products, ie base stations and phones. If QCOM were making W-CDMA phones for instance, they would have to negotiate essentially the same agreement they did with TI with all of the phone manufacturers that hold any W-CDMA subscriber product related patents, and that would not be good for QCOM. Their licensing and royalty agreements are very specific for this reason, TI and QCOM have an agreement which allows the other to use the others patents in the design and sale of ICs, Motorola for instance will have an agreement for subscriber products and possibly base stations (and possibly ICs as well but this would be a different agreement). See, you only pay a royalty on something you actually sell, and the only thing QCOM sells is ICs, so they simply cross license with others that have patents they need for the design of ICs, and they just collect the royalties off the sale of subscriber and base station products. Again, if they were in the subscriber product business, they would need to cross license with all of the other W-CDMA patent holders that have any little part of how to make W-CDMA subscriber products work. That's the reason behind QCOM's potential spin-off of the chip business a few years back, it had to do with the talks with NOK. If QCOM spun-off the chip business, that business would cross license with NOK for the use of NOK's patents, and QCOM would still receive the royalty on the end sale of products. Otherwise, NOK was in a much better negotiating position where they could demand a pure cross license agreement, as it turned out QCOM did not have to spin off the business, and NOK agreed to pay the same royalties (as they did for CDMAone/2000) for the sale of subscriber and base station equipment, and they cross licensed things related to IC design...essentially the same as if QCOM would have spun of the IC business.
So basically I'm trying to say, others do own IP for W-CDMA, more so than for CDMAone/2000, and so QCOM will have to enter some less favorable agreements if they want to participate in the W-CDMA business other than simply collecting royalties on the sale of all end W-CDMA products. They could do this (just collect royalties), but they'd stand to lose out on a huge W-CDMA IC market, which they don't want to do. So we'll see how it plays out, regardless, I think from royalties alone for W-CDMA, and the continued growth of CDMA2000 (which QCOM dominates the IC market and holds the lion's share of patents), QCOM's an easy 3X from here in the next several years.
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