InterDigital Inc (IDCC)

[la-tsla-fan]

This board is so smart that coming up with a post that is meaningful and non-repetitive is almost impossible! Therefore, I am not even going to try that. Instead, I'll highlight the key points I picked up from reading the posts made Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

First, thanks to Ziploc for highlighting the difference between the Samsung win over Apple and the Apple win over Samsung (SEP versus non_SEP). Magilla had highlighted this key difference in an earlier post, but subsequent posters have looked at the issue purely in terms of a US company versus a foreign company.

Second, there seems to be some protectionist sentiment being expressed on the issue. Let's keep in mind that the distinction between a US company and a foreign company is rapidly fading. They are all multinationals. Their research, design, manufacturing and sales are truly global. Apple is (and, in my opinion, should be) more loyal to its stockholders than to the US. The ITC's decisions are not supposed to be based on whether the importing company is US-headquartered or Seoul-headquartered.

Third, thanks to Magilla for posting the two letters from Pennsylvania senators in support of Interdigital. To me, those letters of support (Casey's was well-written, Toomey's seemed to be boilerplate), along with the anti-Samsung decision restore some of the ITC's standing. After the veto on the Apple ban, I had opined that the ITC will not take any action to antagonize its boss. I am glad to see that I was wrong. And I hope I will be proved wrong at least one more time in October.

Lastly (and this is the most important to me), is this quote from a post by Data:

"But I'm still not quite sure why....with all the licensing discussions that have been had in the industry (with more than 145 different companies?)....how a majority of them have concluded NOT to take a license.... even though by my estimation....many of those would not see the business case to spend the money to defend...and would sign."

We have signed many important manufacturers to long-term licenses. Yet, that success does not seem to have any impact on the hold-outs. Data, a question for you: would you say our patents are more standard-centric than Qualcomm's? If so, could that explain why Qualcomm is more successful in nipping hold-outs in the bud?