It is my understanding that no royalty arrangement has been reached w/r/t to WCMDA -- publicly NTT DoCoMo has stated they have no arrangement with QCOM for the use of their vital patents. Accordingly, QCOM says that the royalty rate will be the same, while NTT is attempting to posture a reduced royalty rate by saying that they and others have patents which make WCDMA work. Accordingly, it is my take that NTT wants the overall royalty rate to remain the same to the public, while split the royalties between all developing parties --which obviously if this occurred QCOM's take would be a reduced rate. NTT [and presumably others] are looking for cooperation and are trying to force QCOM to take a reduced rate to keep the public's price [vis-a-vis CMDA royalties] the same for 3G phones as with 2G CMDA phones.
It is my personal take that QCOM is in the catbird's seat -- although I am not an attorney, I don't see how NTT and others can muscle QCOM into accepting less, and WCMDA cannot be deployed without a QCOM license.
[by the way, I think that the move the WCMDA is basically to force a reduced royalty rate to QCOM, while permitting others to share in royalties as well. Further, and probably more important, is to give others the opportunity to produce CMDA chips and stiffle the lead that QCOM has in this area. It has yet to be seen who will be the WCDMA chip leader, assuming that WCDMA is actually deployed, but with CMDA2000, QCOM is the obvious leader and would likely retain the 90%+ sales figures.]
opinionated post, obviously. Interested in comments. |
