More Greenberg on IDCC (from Herb Greenberg's Red Flags on theStreet.com):
Spin move: I see InterDigital Communications (IDCC:Nasdaq) plans a conference call today to, er, discuss its royalty dispute with Nokia.
As I wrote last April in TheStreet View, the issue is critical for InterDigital, which appears to get a good deal of revenue from suing other companies over its patents. TheStreet View item, which appeared as InterDigital was coming off a 70% two-week jump, questioned what recent buyers of the stock could possibly have been thinking.
Well, they must've been convinced the company was about to get more than $300 million in future royalty payments from Samsung and Nokia. At least that was the impression the company left in a March 17 press release about a settlement with Ericsson and Sony Ericsson. The suggestion was that the formula used in the Ericsson settlement "could be" applied to the Nokia case. In fact, the words "could be" were used five times in the press release.
But could be, as investors are learning today, is a far cry from "will be." And this note: In its 10-K, InterDigital disclosed that some manufacturers of third-generation products "have shown reluctance to license our patents because
a leding wireless company has agreed to indemnify them against allegations of infringement."
As I noted in TheStreet View, that's big news because 3G has been a linchpin in the InterDigital story. After all, if some big manufacturer were to indemnify all vendors against InterDigtital, InterDigital risks becoming irrelevant. (For
those wondering where Samsung fits in the scheme of things: They're believed to be waiting to see what happens with Nokia.)
Hard work often pays off over time,
but laziness always pays off right now.
AI
