Bad news for Qualcomm:
It appears almost everything coming out of that conference was a slam at Qualcomm, and if that wasn't bad enough, many of the signatories are people who should be in Qualcomm's court:
IPR should not be used by any company or group of companies to:
- Delay the introduction of IMT-2000 systems and services
- Withhold the use of technology from a harmonized international standard
- Restrict the import or export of third generation equipment to or from any country (consistent with international trade agreements)
- Increase the cost of third generation systems, services and products, beyond historical reasonable and customary levels
- Stifle innovation and the free flow of ideas among companies engaged in developing global IMT-2000 specifications.
Signatories include Bell Atlantic, Sprint and Air Touch, all of whom will be hurt if the accepted world wide standard is not backwards compatible with CDMAOne (note that if both W-CDMA and CDMA-2000 are ITU standards, I would expect that W-CDMA will predominate unless it takes way to long to get off the drawing boards. This is, I think, Qualcomm's justifiable fear and it should be Sprint's as well.) BTW I say that this is aimed more at Qualcomm than Ericsson because most of the things listed are things which Qualcomm has been accused of before, but Ericsson has not. This could almost be a rewording of an Ericsson press release with the Qualcomm name stripped out. (A little exageration, but not much) And some of the other pieces are even more clearly aimed at one company (the excerpt about one company holding up the show, ...).
Final note, in the nature of a Maurice-like rant: It irritates me a great deal that people are telling others what to do with their IPR. Imagine people telling a manufacturer that they are only allowed Gross Margins of less than 15% or some such. IPR is property much as the plant is, and if the owner wants to charge a usurious fee and drive himself out of business in the long haul, that is his problem. If others can work around the IPR, then good for them, but don't be telling others what to do with their property!
Clark |
