Ranger - this is what you may remember...from 3/17/03 CC
TOM CARPENTER: Right. Howard, can you give us a feel for -- and base this on several things such as the number of patents you have, the number of patents you applied for, and the number of patents that you have in some of the proposed standards, can you give us a feel for the strength of your patent portfolio in 3G versus 2G?
HOWARD GOLDBERG: We really -- we haven't published that, Tom, but let me just talk generally about the fact that our patent portfolio is in the multiple thousands when you look at the patents that have actually issued and the patents that are in the process of prosecution. The reason that you...
TOM CARPENTER: Is that 2G and 3G combined?
HOWARD GOLDBERG: Yes, it's 2G and 3G combined, but the reason that you talk about it that way is recently patent conventions became more prevalent, and you file one patent application and then later on you decide which countries you're going to actually prosecute those patents in. But in contrast between 2G and 3G, 2G is something that we developed in the mid 1980s. We've enhanced a little bit, and we're going to continue to focus on activities to acquire additional 2G IPR such as we move forward, but 3G is where we have momentum. We're developing patents and increasing rates of invention, which is very important to understand.
And I think a very critical differentiator is that in the 2G marketplace, InterDigital has the GSM technologies, we're going through the process of standardization and then roll-out. We were not a strong organization at that point in time. We were a small organization, we weren't participating in the standards bodies outside of the U.S. direction, and we kind of watched from the sidelines at the beginning of the 2G rollout. As we approach 3G, we're getting stronger in every important respect, financially, participation in the standards as an architect of the standards, the size of the patent portfio is growing and growing at an increasing rate and increasingly we're getting validation as a holder and licensor of technology.
So there's clearly points of differentiation. The compare and contrast is almost different in every respect and better in every respect when you look at InterDigital in the 3G -- the beginnings of the 3G environment, as opposed to the beginnings of the 2G environment.
TOM CARPENTER: OK, that's great. If you can give us an update on the patent portfolio in the next couple of months on the 3G side, that would be fantastic.
HOWARD GOLDBERG: We're working towards yield methodologies that we'd be confident in publishing.
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