Gidday TJ. <time for take-down and carry-out ...
businesses that exist only at the mercy of know-how protection are really quite fragile.>
For years I have predicted the anti-monopoly attack. The legal experts all dismissed my thoughts as they considered QCOM's licensing position impregnable legally. I disagreed, saying that where there is a big pile of money, the lawyers will not be far away and the governments will be there to support the lawyers to get their hands on the shareholders' money.
To prove a monopoly, one only needs to define "the market" tightly enough. To prove abuse of a monopoly position, one only needs to show a profit has been earned. There is bundling to be considered too. There's lots of profitable legal argumentation to be done.
Governments and courts can declare anything legal or illegal and confiscate anything they fancey. Being mostly chimp in character, they usually do so. They dress it up in some verbosity, with purported reasoning and legal precedent, then grab the loot.
But all the Sier lawyers told me I was wrong.
We will see how wrong I was.
Despite my misgivings, QUALCOMM's licensing seems to have been so reasonable, low priced, non-discriminatory and so on that I have not thought there would be a major problem. I have also been reassured by the thought that King George II, Uncle Sam and the citizenry get a LOT of money from QUALCOMM's revenues and Americans don't take kindly to being robbed. They have got quotas, bans, tariffs and Predators, Tomahawks, USS Ronald Raygun, noocular bombs, ICBMs with MIRVs and all sorts of stuff with which to throw a tantrum if they don't get their way.
Most businesses depend on the continuation of property protection and governments protecting them. I think QUALCOMM's position is better than most.
There are and will be many $billions flowing to Uncle Sam and King George II from QCOMM's revenues. I don't think they'll take kindly to the theft of those $billions. Even the lawyers and "friends of the USA" in France and Germany and other EC countries might find their privileged positions are not enough to grab the loot from Uncle Sam.
We will see. I am not worried, but I note that plenty of people are and that QUALCOMM's share price has been pummelled as a result of their sudden awareness that the attack would take place. Yawn... plus ca change... no surprise for me TJ.
This particular attack on QCOM looks very weak. I don't think they'll get anywhere at all. They might even find themselves paying bigger royalties. 5% [the alleged average royalty] is far too cheap compared with, for example, the 16% GSM royalties for far less valuable technology.
Mqurice
PS: I'm pleased to see that my theory on 5x or even 10x advertising spend increases because of excellent targeting of advertisements in Google [and other cyberspace media] meant you realized your short was doomed and you escaped with minor injuries. [Yes, I am claiming it as my theory] |
