InterDigital Inc (IDCC)

[Data_Rox]

scooter

I don't think it's that strange. Qualcomm basically owns CDMA, of course, and they were a small company by market cap until 1999. Also their presence in LTE isn't as strong as CDMA. Interestingly, a large % of Qualcomm's LTE patents weren't even developed by them but were acquired from Flarion in 2005 for around $700mm if I recall correctly...

the big turn from $3.7B market cap (1997/98) to $26B (1999) and $70B (2000) wasn't because of their narrowband CDMA, but because they were needed to make WCDMA work (despite many different proposals from multiple companies including IDCC's)....problem with standards by committee.

Flarion brought some key OFDMA patents and deployment expertise to the table for sure (purchase was closer to $800M with the incentives), but Qualcomm had a significant OFDM, OFDMA, and MIMO portfolio already. You can search the USPTO.

In LTE we're seeing Qualcomm again being an enabler to the global market, and providing huge R&D and field support to carriers and device manufacturers. They give companies their LTE portfolio for FREE when used in multimode (3G/4G) devices, and have signed 9 single mode LTE licenses for these making that type of product.

As despised as they may be for onerous rates, the market has found value in what they do. I expect that TC, Merritt, and Soni are working to grow the value proposition, so licensing is not as difficult.

All JMO