Qualcomm, Ericsson hold talks
UNION-TRIBUNE
February 19, 1999
San Diego-based Qualcomm and Ericsson AB, Sweden's wireless giant, are trying to negotiate a
settlement of their intellectual property dispute before their case goes to trial April 6.
Ericsson filed a patent-infringement suit against Qualcomm that focuses on a wireless technology
called CDMA.
The pretrial settlement negotiations were reported yesterday by Investors Business Daily.
Christine Trimble, a Qualcomm spokeswoman, confirmed the discussions but said, "There's
nothing that I can really comment on. We haven't made an announcement."
A pretrial hearing in the case is scheduled for Monday in the small town of Marshall, Texas,
where Ericsson filed the case in 1996.
"If a compromise were to happen between now and April, it would be an all-inclusive
agreement," Qualcomm President Richard Sulpizio told Investors Business Daily. "It would solve
this lawsuit as well as get harmonization on the (third-generation) standard."
The lawsuit is set against the backdrop of a broader feud over the rights to rival wireless
techniques developed for the cellular telephone industry. Global Systems Monitoring, or GSM,
reigns in Europe and other parts of the world. Time Division Multiple Access, or TDMA, is the
technology of choice for AT&T. And then there is Code Division Multiple Access, or CDMA,
the technology pioneered by Qualcomm that allows wireless telephone network operators to
cram more calls into the finite radio spectrum.
Resolving the feud over the rival wireless systems is crucial to developing a new technical
standard for the next generation of wireless technologies.
A United Nations agency -- the International Telecommunications Union -- is supposed to
recommend key features of next-generation standards by the end of next month. Like a
government deciding what width of gauge trains will run on, the International
Telecommunications Union hopes to have a single global standard adopted by Dec. 31.
But Ericsson also has laid claim to CDMA. Because of the legal dispute, Ericsson doesn't make
CDMA gear and has been unwilling to pay Qualcomm royalties.
According to Investors Business Daily, the pretrial hearing could show which company holds the
upper hand. For one thing, it should determine what evidence is admissible.
"We'd like to have it resolved," Bo Dimert, CEO of Ericsson's U.S. unit, told Investors Business
Daily. "We're optimistic we can settle these things so we can go ahead and continue to work on a
broadband communications system for the future."
|
