Let's say company X says their DS CDMA should result in XR royalties to X. Then Q says "Fine for you our royalties are QR"
That without question would represent a "discriminatory basis" and Qcom is signatory to an international public pledge not to do so. Such a pledge is made for the basis of reliance thereon by others - i.e. in any court of law outside of the PRC, the gambit you outlined would be doomed, given Q's agreement to make IPR available on a non-discriminatory basis.
What the Q has said, consistently, is that they are not going to enter into some DS patent pool where some (I'm sure impartial European) authority would determine the relative value of each participant's IPR.
So they can start out with 5%, or whatever, as the rack rate, and the negotiated value of each other participants
essential DS IPR gets folded into an x-license. I'm sure that Q's management has brainstormed this to death in formulating its policy, but the flip side of not pooling patents and negotiating with each player is that the cumulative amount of x-licenses adds up. i.e. Q holds out for 5% from each player, but say there are eight DS IPR holders each of which negotiates a 1% x-license, all of a sudden you have 5% coming in, but 8% going out on QCOM-made DS chips. Of course, on non-Qcom made DS chips, then presumably, if this strategy holds, Q gets the full 5%. There are compelling strategic reasons why Q must become a significant player in DS ASIC's, IMO, not just some tollgate until the toll bonds (patents) mature. |
