So, it's not true then that there is a standard rate. That's one lie. If it's standard, it could be what we in the oil industry called a posted price. No negotiation is needed to buy at the posted price.
Rich, I spent quite a few years at the sharp end of the oil industry. I have got a lot of experience of competition and competitors in industry and government. Oil gets into everything. Every little nook and cranny, though not much in the insurance industry - it soaks into the paperwork and gets on the carpet.
I know very well how competition works, negotiations, contracts, discounts, 'standard' prices, bundling, tying, secrecy, lies, law-breaking, price-fixing, bribery and the whole drama of which there is a lot.
A lot of people are compulsively secretive. There is no reason for it but their own paranoia and also a need to get and feel power. Also, all too often, for criminal purposes.
I don't want to see each contract. That's why I hire a swarm of QUALCOMM people and lawyers. What I do want to see is bottom, aggregate, lines, 'standard' rates.
Why is the "top rate" a secret? If it varies, say so. If it doesn't say what it is. Is if $500, or $200, or $10,000? There is NO reason for that to be a secret. I want to know what it is and what happens to it to adjust for inflation.
It looks as though "patent exhaustion" is going to take care of that issue. We'll collect royalties for ASICs and that's about it. After the ASIC, the royalties will be deemed so tired out, puffed and exhausted that there's no more payment due just because the ASIC gets put into a cyberphone. Meanwhile, apart from 'exhausted', they'll be paid up. Or QCOM's hands will be so dirty and filthy that courts will order them out and not force Nokia or others to pay any royalties. Other courts will deem QCOM unFRANDly, contrary to agreements so they'll set a 'standard' royalty rate based on patent counting excluding exhausted patents or paid up ones.
Meanwhile, insiders know the royalty rates when they sell, but the rest of us don't ... hmmm, I wonder if any class action lawyers are wondering where there's a pile of money to pile on to.
It is all a LOT of fun. The good old days of technological developments are long gone and it's a royalty rush and litigious money grab now.
Mqurice |
