Hi Clark. What if governments decide that bundled intellectual property is anti-competitive, dumping, illegal and each item must be separately licensed and priced?
Microsoft got into trouble for the small matter of bundling a browser into an operating system. I prefer the whole lot bundled and having a single supplier because then I know who to blame when things go wrong. But the law says MSFT and $ill Gates are bad guys because of the politics of envy, so that's the law. Mob rule rulz and if they want to, the mob [or their representatives] can kill the goose that lays the golden egg.
Both the USA and Europe have attacked the Good Guys [GG]. QUALCOMMies are GG too, so I expect that they'll be attacked, when they have enough money, on the principle that lawyers and politicians seek money and when they see big piles of mega$illions they come over all drooly and start inventing laws which mean that the GG have to give the money to them.
QUALCOMM might be forced to unbundle the 1000s of patents and sell them individually.
People will order, "gpsOne, radioOne, CDMA2000, leave the GPRS but just give me a sprinkle of GSM with a side of 1xEV-DO. Hold the EDGE."
"Sure, and would you like fries with that?"
Management of intellectual property would become a nightmare. Imagine trying to check billions of phones to see which are using what to ensure royalties are being paid. Governments are okay with nightmares though, so I won't be surprised if they force it.
Mqurice |
