JKJ - the conference call was powerful IMO
They gave us a lot to look forward to and told us the wait wouldn't be too long.
Examples (my bold):
Merritt: "I am confident we will expand our licensing base this year. Let me explain why. Rich and Howard have both said it, but it bears repeating. We have momentum, and I can tell you from years of licensing, momentum is very important. Putting aside all the technical and legal factors, prospective licensees are far more likely to enter into a license if they see others licensing with you. They are also more likely to agree to license if they know you have the financial strength and determination to pursue the matter through to conclusion. We have all those factors on our side, and they are very important in the current market. As we all know, there are many financially challenged companies out there. A financially challenged company is more likely to try to delay the resolution of a licensing obligation than deal with it, and this environment can be a significant problem for patent holders who are new to licensing. We are not in that category. The fact that we have licensed a significant portion of the 2G market and have a reputation as a determined licensing organization, makes a big difference. Companies know that they have to deal with us."
More Merritt: "The current market holds other opportunities. Over the recent past, a number of companies patented excellent wireless telecom inventions and built proprietary know-how positions but these companies have failed to their investment. They are either in stressed financial condition or in need of assistance to maximize the return on that you their technology investment. Seeing this trend about a year ago, we made the decision to expand our licensing efforts to include the opportunistic acquisition of intellectual property assets. We see an opportunity to use this period of market downturn for concluding license agreements can be more difficult to broaden, deepen, extend, and diversify our patent portfolio."
More Merritt: "We held patents in all the 3G standards, these acquisitions deepened our coverage.. These acquisitions also provided us with a value added offering in the form of smart antennae technology which could be critical to, among other things, the optimized deployment of 3G. This creates a win-win situation for the licensee and for InterDigital. We continue to be involved in a number of other IPR acquisition discussions and it's our desire to conclude additional acquisitions this year..."
More Merritt: "In many cases companies have sought us out to assist them in fully monetizing their IPR investment. That did so based in our industry reputation and success it's nice to hear that recognition as it validates our hard work in building a strong licensing presence over the years. It also points to an important factor that will differentiate InterDigital from others as 3G licensing moves into full swing."
Last Merritt: "In summary, we are good at what we do. And unlike others that are just now attempting to enter into patent licensing, we've been doing it for a long time. These are the types of things, like momentum, that have contributed to our success and will help us create even greater successes in the future."
From Howard: "This year at the 3G congress in February, we distinguished ourselves by demonstrating with 100% uptime reliability complete standards-compliant WCDMA terminal platform solutions for the third generation wireless market. Our FDD and TDD technology platforms accomplished an industry first by transmitting and receiving live video at an impressive 384 K kilobits per second. Our demonstration of a complete WCDMA solution certainly stood above our competitors displaying at the time."
More Howard: "At the same time, we were very pleased with the positive reaction to our TDD products at the show. During the 3GSM event we met almost nonstop with operators and manufacturers. They are realizing the competitive cost and revenue benefits created by deploying UMTS standards-compliant TDD technology."
Nice exchange:
BILL MERRITT: I don't see people that are unlicensed waiting for the Nokia and Samsung issues to resolve. That issue is defining a payment; it's not a question of whether they're licensed or not. They are licensed. It is just a question of defining those payments.
TOM CARPENTER: That's what I meant more, to see how the royalty rate shakes out.
BILL MERRITT: I don't see that. You know, frankly, the press release that we put out with respect to the projected revenues is helpful because it gives people a feel for what we feel the big guys would pay, and it's helpful in our negotiations because the rates we offer them, people can see, how do they match up those? I see it all as very positive, getting those deals done, getting visibility for the things. As I said we have very good momentum and I see it every day.
Another:
MIKE WALKLY: Okay. Great. A follow-up question. You mentioned a couple of times this morning cdma2000. Could you mention more on the royalties or does this mean crossing some of our other key technology areas?
BILL MERRITT: We see it as a good opportunity on the same lines as FDD, and other things. There will be healthy deployment of CDMA2000 There already has been. We believe we have a solid patent position. So we anticipate we will be able to derive some good revenues off of those products.
More on cdma2000:
JOHN BUCHER: And final question, do you expect that you'll sign up a top-tier handset manufacturer for CD-made 2000, 1-X in calendar year 2003?
BILL MERRITT: John, we intend to expand the licensing base in 2003, and those are a focus of our licensing efforts. Whether those are the ones that come in 2003, I can't predict that. But I can tell you that is one of our main focus.
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