| Steve Altman principally negotiated the Ericsson litigation settlement, and therefore knows fully its history. When he, in the recent conference call, labeled the EU complaints as merely "an effort to rewrite history", he had complete knowledge of the facts behind his rhetoric. It was Ericsson who had sued Qualcomm, and ultimately capitulated, after "discovery" and the "Markman report" had marked them for likely defeat. Rather than allowing the legal system to set fair and reasonable respective patent rates, Ericsson wisely decided to retain control of its own destiny, by knowingly and voluntarily negotiating the binding settlement. The fact that the seminal Ericsson "deal" occurred in the context of that litigation, affords another, important, layer of sanction to the proposition that Qualcomm`s royalty rates are "fair and reasonable". As to the "non-discriminatory" aspect of FRAND, given the number and diversity of Qualcomm`s licensees, and the context in which the current controversy has arisen (i.e. non-player Broadcom in desperate need of a license to enter the market with Ziray Spinner chips, Nokia`s self-serving plan to dictate an arbitrary total royalty cap of 5% to the world, and WCDMA finally proliferating in Europe, Qualcomm should be afforded a rebuttable presumption that it can successfully defend its practices as being consistant with FRAND. |
