InterDigital Inc (IDCC)

[j70k]

IMO-FRAND was established as a legal maneuver by the large oems and essential patent holders on the 3g standards board to ensure that their relative competitive situations stayed as they were.For this reason,I don't see any way nok will license with idcc until after it reaches a deal with qcom and the rest of the MENS club has negotiated a deal with IDCC.I think that management realized that SAM was the most vulnerable of the big four and that the chances of getting a reasonable rate in a reasonable amount of time were the greatest with SAM.Since nobody was going to voluntarily put themselves in an uncompetitive position,it became necessary to sue for infringement and begin ITC proceedings.Right on cue,SAM countersues IDCC under FRAND rights.This seems to be the blueprint that IDCC is being forced to follow to assert its patent rights and unfortunately this process is lengthy and costly.SAM also is in no hurry to sign for 3g,as I'm sure they would like to see where qcom/nok ends up and if nok is successful in knocking out any of our declared essential patents.Bottom line,it is and has always been about RATES,with all the other legal crap being a potshot at knocking down the number of patents deemed essential or demeaning the value of the patents that everyone knows are essential.When all is said and done,there is no way that we will get the same rate from the big four as we are now getting from those that didn't contribute essential ipr to the standards and until we are able to play the cross licensing game,no one is really interested in what we think our ipr is worth.We will have to give those that contributed, some kind of relative concession for their patents.Other than finally getting our 2g money from Sam,the rest of this year looks pretty bleak.I hope that I am missing some catalyst that will speed up this unbelievably long process and finally allow us to execute our business plan.gltal.