mjk, good, we're on the same page.
I think your NOK example was a bit misleading, though, in that it suggested NOK had a large advantage over Company X (ie the Koreans) in selling wCDMA equipment because NOK had a cross agreement with QCOM and thus paid nothing for IC IP.
My understanding of the agreement you posted is that NOK will pay QCOM the same royalty as it previously did (~5%) on everythih\ng it sells, but that QCOM would pay NOK no royalty at all in return. This deal includes wCDMA patents, which was the reason NOK dragged its feet for so long before finally caving in and signing.
The only thing I know, which would require QCOM to pay or obtain waiver of GSM royalties, would be a CDMA/GSM multi-mode ASIC, which is not yet a big sales item, and which will ultimately be a transitional item, pending full adoption of wCDMA.
The only thing I know, which would require QCOM to pay or obtain waiver of GSM royalties, would be a CDMA/GSM multi-mode phone, which is not yet a big sales item, and which will ultimately be a transitional item, pending full adoption of wCDMA.
This gets pretty legal, and I'm happy to be corrected if I'm wrong, but I think, therefore, your example given of NOK's (or anybody else except QCOM's) IP advantage doesn't really apply for wCDMA
It does still apply to GSM. One of the reasons GSM is so reviled by anybody who's not on the GSM inside is that the big GSM players (MOT, NOK, ERICY and Siemens) set up a mutual cross licensing deal whereby they locked everybody else (read: Koreans) out of the GSM business by creating a very high royalty for outsiders, but no royalty at all for insiders.
wCDMA does away with most of this problem. Mfgrs will be on a more equal footing. I look for the Korean manufacturers Samsung, LG, etc) to continue to eat into the high market share of the Europeans as 3G becomes more real.
regards,
phill
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