Vgfuture re MFL clauses
First I think you misinterpreted Sharp's MFL clause. Sharp could invoke the MFL clause on any other licensee who subsequently signed for a better royalty rate, except any licensee that IDCC entered into a stategic partnership/alliance with. That provision would definitely exclude Sharp from invoking the MFL clause based upon the Nokia contract. I think that Sharp could still invoke the MFL clause on the subsequent license of anyone who was not a strategic partner, and who got a better deal from IDCC.
However, Samsung was able to invoke their MFL clause based on the Nokia contract. I feared that others might also use Nokia for the MFL provision, but I doubt it now, unless they too had a strategic relationship with IDCC. As Ken pointed out Samsung did have a strategic relationship with IDCC also. Some additional thoughts on why Samsung was able to use the Nokia contract as an MFL clause from the following repost:
Posted by: rmarchma
In reply to: teecee who wrote msg# 10762
Mschere and Teecee re MFL clauses
Good observations about Samsung probably having a similar MFL provision as NEC, and Samsung being entitled to use Nokia as MFL due to Samsung's strategic partnership with IDCC also. When I learned of the arbitration decision that Samsung had been able to apply Nokia's license as an MFL provision in their contract, I was fearful that other licensees with MFL provisions might be able to use Nokia's license as well. However, that now looks pretty doubtful unless the other licensees with MFL clauses were to establish a project or partnership relationship with IDCC involving engineering services and joint product development. Also how do you put an economic value on Nokia helping to get IDCC's IPR into the 3G standards? That is probably why IDCC did not think Samsung was entitled to use Nokia as an MFL clause, even though Samsung had a strategic partnership relationship with IDCC. But that strategic partnership with Samsung did produce BCDMA, which much of the IPR developed therein got incorporated as FDD in the 3G standards. Therefore lots of similarities between Nokia's and Samsung's relationships with IDCC.
