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Duane, Motorola has already lost on the handset design issue. San Diego judge almost literally threw MOT out of court, Ruled that clam shell was not protected, further revealed during trial that MOT had taken some Q phones back to Illinois for some "re-engineering", MOT employee(s) fired, judge used phrase "unclean hands" referring to MOT--disaster for the Illinois boys.
Ericy case is stayed until January '98 with both QCOM and Ericy in an unusual "take no action against each other" till then posture. According to George Gilder, Ericy is in a no win position. Ericy execs admitted to Gilder at a corporate retreat that their R&D guys thought CDMA wouldn't work and they dropped it and went on a rather aggressive campaign belittling Qualcomm for pursuing a ridiculuous dream. They now claim that they have been at it the longest and will bring out wideband CDMA (WCDMA) because it (spread spectrum) is a superior technology!
MOT is not done with its litigation against QCOM on the more substantive issue of patent infringement on basic CDMA research. Obviously, it would be impossible to claim which side will win and finding objective commentators is very, very difficult. I have spent some time on the topic, but am neither an attorney nor a telecom professional. Best I can tell, Qualcomm's patent position on CDMA is nearly impregnable. Their "ownership" of IS95 is undisputed and their royalty payment stream is accelerating--just announced 3rd Qtr results two weeks ago: revenues up 112% Q to Q, profits equivalent. Motorola now inisists that they are the CDMA experts and announced potential breakthrough in CDMA base stations with ability to handle doubled call traffic. Meanwhile, Lucent claims that they have the largest installed base of CDMA infrastructure world wide and their only gripe against QCOM is that their royalties are too high and that "CDMA is too big for any one company to control". The driver seems to be data at which CDMA is superior--a point on which everybody agrees. As for European GSM instal base, Qualcomm has an overlay experiment in trial with Vodaphone whereby CDMA is the air interface. At last conference call, Dr. Jacobs strongly implied that the experiment is "promising" with results to be announced "shortly". I have already announced my pro-QCOM prejudice so take the above with caution though I have attempted to include only objectively verifiable fact. IMO, the Jacobs/Viterbi team have pulled off the upset-miracle and established the new technological standard that will define wireless communications. One thing is for sure, CDMA is no longer the orphan in the corner crying for attention. Best, Mike Doyle |
