Hey DaveMG:
This is not my area of expertise, so you are forewarned. Perhpas engineer or Clark may shed some light on this as I fumble around.
Q has a broad portfolio of patents for CDMA, some of which are "essential" or core patents that cover the technological foundation for CDMA--transmission and descrambling of sequential/simultaneous communications each tied to its own code, etc. etc.
Then there are a slew of patents to the core patented technology that improve its functioning (soft handoff? Clark, help!), ability to interface with handset DSP's, infra DSP's and ASICS, related software etc.
Dr. J at the CC with ERICY spoke, I believe, about the cross-royalty rates being proportional to the "essential" patent positions of the parties. Presumably, many if not most of the essential patents relate to the core of CDMA functioning, rather than the peripheral performance enhancing or feature enabling patents.
What Steve of ASIC DIV said, in effect, [paraphrasing]: "you license one, it's the same as licensing all" seems to mean that, even if down the road in 2005, if a licensee of CDMA is signing on to the latest generation of core or peripheral patents, it would seem that essential patents are grandfathered (i.e., no true expiration date) indefinitely. It also seems as though claims that certain technology that the non-Q operator/ASIC maker claims are not CDMA might become subject to equivalent (full) CDMA royalties just by using the peripheral patented technology. Also the question whether ERICY tacitly subscribes to this interpretation of the Q IPR position.
Again, this is not my area. Maybe I'm blowing smoke and this is not really so remarkable at all. If so, come one, come all and pillory me. Regards. Liacos_samui |
