Ruffian,
In the article you posted on msg 10071 it stated;
<< ...But now two rival "modes" of CDMA are emerging. Some equipment and handset makers are pushing a variation that will require them to make lower royalty payments to Qualcomm.... >>
As I do more research about this supposed difference in royalty payments, I am not sure that the conventional wisdom is true. For example, the recent 3/20/00 press release by Qualcomm concerning the Hitachi CDMA license for 3G reads in part;
"...Hitachi has agreed to pay QUALCOMM a multi-million dollar up-front license fee and ongoing royalties as Hitachi begins selling third-generation CDMA equipment. The royalties payable by Hitachi are the same irrespective of the licensed CDMA standard."
qualcomm.com
A second example, is the license agreement between Qualcomm and Neopoint that VOOP posted on #10045.
Message 13705825
(look about 1/2 down the second page of the agreement)
-start-
"Authorized Licensees" shall have the meaning described in Section 6.3 below.
"CDMA Applications" means all communication applications (regardless of the transmission medium) which operate using code division multiple access ("CDMA") technology, whether or not based on IS-95, cdma2000 or W-CDMA, and irrespective of frequency band.
"CDMA ASIC" means a mobile station modem (MSM) CDMA application specific integrated circuit (including firmware thereon) sold by QUALCOMM, and any revision, generation, improvements, modifications or integration to or of the MSM.
-Finish-
In addition, Kayaker transcribed part of the 2/17/200 Qualcomm analyst call on post #6720, which sounds pretty definitive from Qualcomm's point of view. They feel they have a lock on the IPR for both DS as well as MC standards. Others must agree, or they wouldn't be entering into these agreements with Qualcomm, IMO;
Message 12931020
I have yet to find direct evidence that Qualcomm receives different royalty payments for CDMA2000 systems than for W-CDMA systems. If anyone has evidence to the contrary, please post. Otherwise it appears that we have massive FUD being disseminated on this topic.
Long on Q (and learning more about CDMA than I ever thought possible) <g>
Regards,
DN |
