Yes, a cellphone was just a cellphone, but the Anita [TM] was already on the drawing boards. With a fixed %, it was obvious that QUALCOMM's royalties would decline to near-zero if there wasn't a continuous upgrading and adding of technology to the cyberphone, in the same way that computers improved and had bits and pieces added on over 30 years.
The point of the upper limit on QUALCOMM royalty was so that device makers didn't have to worry about what happened at the high end. There would always be a limit on QUALCOMM's royalty.
So, for example, if somebody put a superconducting maglev component on the cyberphone and the phone was used as a transport device, a mini car, the manufacturer wouldn't have to pay a royalty on that functionality.
But it was always the intention that aspects of the phone that had nothing to do with CDMA would pay the royalty. For example, screens, the plastic casing, the battery, the keyboard were all nothing to do with CDMA, but they were charged the same royalty.
One doesn't detail the individual components which are paying the royalty. The whole point of the royalty is that it enables other technologies to be used. Neither was the original royalty intended simply to carry voice. Your argument could apply to data. Phones were being used to carry data when royalty agreements were first made, but that doesn't mean that when data is added as a service, royalties should not apply.
QUALCOMM included internet protocol in the stack of software because they expected cyberspace to be part of the system eventually.
You might be right that juries, who have the average intelligence of a frog, will be bemused by the whole intellectual property debate and opt for net neutrality and "information wants to be free" and similar cliches. If the glove don't fit, you must acquit.
Mqurice |
