Thread, ref IDC, I took it upon myself to send an email to the guy who wrote an article in briefing.com on IDC and I have pasted below what he had to say. Turns out he does not seeIDC at all as the next Baby Qcom. So for those who were getting worried, another reason to ponder.
Dear Martin:
Thanks for your email.
The QCOM/IDC patent issue is straight out of the 10-K for IDC.
For your benefit, in case you haven't done the research yet yourself, I have
pasted a relevant paragraph at the end of this email, but here is the summary:
QCOM and IDC settled a dispute over who owns CDMA patents about 5 years ago
and cross licensed some patents to each other. But it doesn't appear that
IDC benefits from increased CDMA sales, which is what I wrote in the QCOM
piece. I in fact, kind of ridiculed the concept that IDC is a "baby
qualcomm" even though IDC was moving rapidly this week on that concept.
Frankly, I have a hard time understanding the displeasure evident in your
email, as what I wrote seems to agree substantially with what you are
arguing in your email.
As for my responsibility to readers, I take that very seriously. I don't
mind people taking issue with my opinions, but when you call me a
journalist, it really bothers me... :-)
Thanks for reading Briefing.com
Robert V. Green
Briefing.com
At 12:34 AM 12/31/1999 -0700, you wrote:
>Dear Sir/Madam,
>
>Nice article on Qcom/IDC. However, would you care to substantiate the
>fact that Qcom is using patents licensed from IDC? And if so, which of
>them? You have a responsibility to those who read your articles, which
>happen to have a lot of exposure to justify this because, if there is
>any bubble that is being created, it would be the one regarding IDC. It
>is not enough to have any patent on CDMA. What is important is to have
>the patents on the part of CDMA that provides all the potential which is
>driving Qcom's stock. Why do you think Ericcson was in litigation with
>Qcom and not IDC? Please make sure you do some research and present a
>story as it is. Journalists so often fail to present a story
>objectively, even as they try to present an unbiased picture. Qcom's
>stock might have run ahead of itself lately, but at least it is because
>of the potential it has shown. Not because it is running in sympathy
>with some other company's stock, like an IDC.
>
>Thank you.
>
>Martin.
>
From IDC 10-K: (ITC is a wholly owned subsidiary of IDC)
At December 31, 1998, ITC had granted non-exclusive, non-transferable,
perpetual, worldwide, royalty-bearing licenses to use certain CDMA patents (and
in certain instances, technology) to Siemens, Samsung, Alcatel and Qualcomm
Incorporated ("Qualcomm"), and a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable,
royalty-bearing license to Advanced Digital Technologies. One of these licenses
involved a CDMA cross-license agreement with Qualcomm, entered into in 1994 in
settlement of litigation filed in 1993. In return for a one-time payment of $5.5
million, ITC granted to Qualcomm a fully-paid, worldwide license to use and
sublicense certain specified and then existing (but excluding defined
after-filed and/or granted) ITC CDMA patents (including related divisional and
continuation patents) to make and sell products for IS-95-type wireless
applications, including, but not limited to, cellular, PCS, wireless local loop
and satellite applications. Qualcomm has the right to sublicense certain of
ITC's licensed CDMA patents so that Qualcomm's licensees will be free to
manufacture and sell IS-95-type CDMA products without requiring any payment to
ITC. Neither ITC's patents concerning cellular overlay and interference
cancellation nor its current inventions are licensed to Qualcomm. Under the
settlement, Qualcomm granted to InterDigital a royalty-free license to use and
to sublicense the patent that Qualcomm had asserted against InterDigital and a
royalty-bearing license to use certain Qualcomm CDMA patents in InterDigital's
B-CDMA products, if needed. InterDigital does not believe that it will be
necessary to use any of such royalty-bearing or non-licensed Qualcomm patents in
its B-CDMA system. In addition, Qualcomm agreed, subject to certain
restrictions, to license certain CDMA patents on a royalty bearing basis to
those InterDigital customers that desire to use Qualcomm's patents. The license
to InterDigital does not apply to IS-95-type systems, or to satellite systems.
Certain of Qualcomm's patents, relating to key IS-95 features such as soft and
softer hand-off, variable rate vocoding, and orthogonal (Walsh) coding, are not
licensed to InterDigital. The license to Advanced Digital Technologies was
entered into as a part of the spin-off of InterDigital's government contracting
business in 1996. This license is limited in its field of use to CDMA technology
on the date of the license. |
