Replies to post #183327 on InterDigital Inc (IDCC)

[laranger]

Loop.

I was merely commenting that the ITC judge appears to be biased toward QCOM.

He wouild stop chips from entering the country, but has no problem with phones (containing those chips) from crossing our borders.

This guy would do well in Washington.

[mschere]

From the Qualcomm reply to the E.U.


QUALCOMM Competitors File Anticompetitive Complaints to European Commission
Broadcom, Ericsson, NEC, Nokia, Panasonic Mobile Communications and Texas Instruments have each filed complaints to the EURpean Commission requesting that it investigate anti-competitive conduct by Qualcomm in the licensing of essential patents for 3G mobile technology.

The companies state that QUALCOMM is violating EU competition law and failing to meet the commitments Qualcomm made to international standard bodies around the world that it would license its technology on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms. Absent these commitments, the WCDMA 3G standard would not have been adopted. The companies allege that QUALCOMM is infringing these rules by:

trying to exclude competing manufacturers of chipsets for mobile phones from the market and preventing others from entering. To this end, Qualcomm has committed a number of abuses, ranging from the refusal to license essential patents to potential chipset competitors on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms to offering lower royalty rates to handset customers who buy chipsets exclusively from QUALCOMM.
charging royalties for its WCDMA essential patents that are excessive and disproportionate; in particular by imposing the same royalty rate on WCDMA 3G handsets as it does for CDMA2000 3G handsets despite the fact that QUALCOMM has contributed far less technology to the WCDMA 3G standard than it has to the CDMA2000 standard.
The companies believe that Qualcomm's anti-competitive behavior has harmful effects for the mobile telecommunications sector in EURpe, as well as elsewhere, because carriers and consumers are facing higher prices and fewer choices.

QUALCOMM Response

In response, Qualcomm issued a statement saying that the allegations are factually inaccurate and legally meritless. QUALCOMM said it has more than 130 licenses that it has granted to a broad range of companies, among them five of the six reported claimants.

QUALCOMM also disagreed with any suggestion that it has contributed less significant technology to the WCDMA 3G standard, saying "it is widely acknowledged that efforts to design around QUALCOMM's fundamental innovations in formulating the UMTS/WCDMA standard were unsuccessful."

QUALCOMM said it believes this action is nothing more than an attempt by these licensees to renegotiate their license agreements by seeking governmental intervention.

QUALCOMM also noted that contrary to the reported allegation that it is seeking to exclude chip competitors, QUALCOMM has licensed major chip manufacturers, including Texas Instruments, NEC, Infineon, Philips, Agere, Motorola, VIA and Fujitsu.
http://www.ti.com/
http://www.qualcomm.com
28-Oct-05



I do not know why every IDCC shareholder is rooting on an injunction just as IDCC is about to enter the chip business. I cannot imagine how IDCC can place a chipset in commerce that does not infringe the IPR of a few companies. Perhaps IDCC has licensed with several companies, but I do not remember who, when or what. I know that over a 100 companies were claiming IPR for W-CDMA (which BTW, I hope has been pled in the WOM action and cross-action in DE, but I do not know how many involved chip components. I do not see how IDCC wins either way on a result in the Broadcom/Qualcom battle.

[Learning2vest]

Loop - Some thoughts re concerns about IDCC's access to the IPR required to begin marketing ASICs.

The Ericsson EMP "Platform" offering provides a full set of the processing functions required to make an integrated wireless ASIC work as required, AND it also appears to include a pass-thru package of the IPR rights required for a commercially marketed ASIC(see bolded below).
..........................................................

Ericsson EMP Overview

To date its customers have shipped more than seven
million WCDMA phones. By the end of
2004, EMP's platforms could be found in
ten models of WCDMA phones, giving
EMP a 30% market share of the worldwide
WCDMA market.

EMP's customers
At year-end 2004, EMP had signed license
and development agreements with fourteen
customers worldwide. Six of the top handset
manufacturers use mobile platforms
from Ericsson.

Business model

EMP develops extensive core technology in
the form of
. integrated circuit design;
. platform software;
. complete design of reference phones; and
. test software.

The EMP business model is to license this
core technology and sell consultancy support
services to customers. The license fee is
typically divided into an up-front charge for
access to core technology and a per-unit royalty
when products are in volume production.

The platform makes use of EMP's integrated
circuit devices. Customers buy these directly
from EMP's silicon partners but negotiate the
purchase price with EMP. EMP also provides
support to help customers get into production
quickly.

Modern phones contain functionality that
requires intellectual property rights (IPR)
from multiple parties. Examples of IPR are
audio and video coders, Java virtual machines
and profiles, universal serial bus
(USB), and crypto cells.

Ordinarily, a phone manufacturer will
have to negotiate with different IPR owners
to use their licenses, but EMP can sublicense
most IPR to the manufacturer, often
at a lower price than the manufacturer could
obtain through direct negotiations. EMP can
thus offer its customers a complete package
of key components and licenses for technology
from EMP and third parties. Many customers
appreciate this one-stop shopping.

.....................................................

Since we have now been told that InterDigital plans to begin delivering their engineering samples of a standards-compliant HSDPA/HSUPA W-CDMA ASIC(and the protocol stack software necessary to run on it) sometime this summer, IMO it is a good bet that IDCC has exercised their "option to license" Ericsson's EMP platform AND,... that IDCC plans to become another one of Ericsson's "silicon partners" selling to wireless OEM's. In addition, I'm thinking that IDCC's ASICs will also enjoy access to Infineon's relevant IPR under their fab process partner contract relationship.

If that is on target(?), any infringement actions taken against IDCC's ASIC products would effectively be against the combined patent portfolio's of Ericsson and Infineon. IMO it's not to worry with those two big players on IDCC's ASIC team.