InterDigital Inc (IDCC)

[Learning2vest]

Mickey, as I was reading your ref post the following thought came to mind. Maybe Nokia or one of the other wireless manufacturers is busting Irwin's chops over the current royalty rate on.... let's say CDMA2000. Maybe they signed up for the much ballyhooed "5% flat rate gets you everything CDMA" licensing deals we heard QCOM was pushing a few years ago. And maybe they even got some kind of very fuzzy definition for what was covered written into an "indemnification" clause of that old contract. That's really not too far fetched to consider given the way the standards have been updated and changed in recent years IMO.

OK, NOW we have InterDigital(and others) with newly adopted IPR contributions being included in the current versions of the same CDMA2000 standard. Utt Oh!... Guess what? They want to be PAID for those newly adopted contributions. QCOM may be caught between one of those rock and a hard place situations when it comes to holding the line on their "5% gets you everything CDMA" deals.

If the other guys with newly adopted "essential" IPR in the current CDMA2000 standard want let's say 1% royalty for THEIR contributions, who is going to pay THAT money? Are the manufacturers going to cough up another 1% and make the new CDMA2000 rate 6% without a fight, or are they going to bust chops with QCOM to CUT their rate to 4% so the manufacturers can keep paying the same 5% royalty for CDMA2000 products? That's what is playing out right now IMO. Rate haggling. And IDCC should just sit quietly on the sidelines of that dogfight while their Enganeers and patent attorneys keep on putting more good "essential" stuff in the standards.