Marsala's report is vindictive and punitive to management. Apparently, he was burned rather badly so in his latest report he gives no weight to any upside or growth potential and he opts for all worst case assumptions e.g. conservative terminal value multiple, no new licensees, no Nok royalty until the end of 2004, etc.. IMO, Marsala's latest report reflects an absolute worst case scenario.
As to the Nok arbitration, he reflects that IDCC is relying on Ericy as the trigger since Ericy is specifically written into the Nok License (reassuuring to me) while Nok has the interpretation that Sony/Ericy has lost market share (now only 6%) so they no longer qualify as a trigger (based on a market share perspective).
In my experience, the written words in the contract will be controlling so ERICY WILL BE ADJUDGED AS A VALID TRIGGER, no matter what their current market share. If NOK originally intended to reference market share as the trigger, then the contract should have stated precisely that in writing (which apparently it does not).
IDCC has enjoyed repeated validation of its IPR. Furthermore, the company is prepared to fight for due and fair compensation. IDCC's contracts are getting tighter, management more assertive in pursuing its claims, and enforcement actions faster (i.e. arbitration is much faster than court), and 3G is certainly being rolled out now, so in the big picutre, IDCC is certainly getting down to the short strokes in the coming months.
Finally, Marsala DOES seem to concur that Nok will pay something close to the amounts claimed by IDCC but perhaps delayed until the end of 2004. Again, this seems like a worst case assumption as to timing.
I am optimistic that Nok and IDCC could kiss and make-up after Nok's motion for records is denied and they get close to having a few arbitrators interpret the words that are actually WRITTEN in their license.
Why would Nok continue to let others set rates for them? This strategy doesn't make sense to me, especially when they are losing market share and they evidently don't like the rates others have set for them.
Regards,
Corp_Buyer
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