Patent issues and China, Part II: Your post, Valueman, is peculiarly on point. And with apologies to all whom this little story might offend, and I intend to offend no one, the Chinese flavor of CDMA well may be allegorical. The story involves Japanese businessmen, not Chinese, and the cultural differences and permutations are vast. I had a friend who represented a US company's interests vis a vis a Japanese company, which was a licensee and was required to prepare quarterly royalty statements and pay based thereon in the following month. The US company knew from market commentary, industrial spies and the like that the Japanese company was selling product in large volumes, but the royalty reports simply didn't reflect the actual sales, quarter after quarter. A meeting was called in NY. The Japanese representatives, of an otherwise reputable and well-known firm, simply stone-walled when confronted on the true sales numbers, and the relationship eventually fell apart.
This may not be so different from E's spin machine on CDMA, after all is said and done. There are definitely different ways of doing business in this world.
Best regards. Steven |
