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To: JohnG who wrote (19838)	4/28/2002 9:16:31 PM
From: JohnG	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 34857

llmarinen. Plan on paying QCOM royalties on W-CDMA for the rest of your natural life -- then your kids can take up the gauntlet. For this you get super ASICS and a sanely manged high capacity technology. o:Mucho Maas who wrote (117552) From: David E. Taylor Sunday, Apr 28, 2002 8:45 PM Respond to of 117567 Mucho: There was an excellent analysis of QCOM's IPR position with respect to 3G CDMA 2000 and WCDMA for which Ben Garrett posted a link last March on the Mod thread: Message 15475451 The IPR/patent analysis is available here, and is well worth the time taken for free registration and download of the 7 page report (an easy read I might add): m-cam.com In essence, the analysis found that Qualcomm's original five basic patents were essential to any commercialization of 3G CDMA, a position that has been upheld in challenges in US, European, Korean and Japanese patent courts. The first of those five patents expires 2/13/07, the other four on 10/8/08, 3/31/09, 4/7/09, and 4/28/09. The report makes the important point that a very large number of subsequent CDMA patents cite these five "basic" patents, and without which commercialization of CDMA technology could not be a reality. A quote from the report: Over 1,500 different patents cited the five Qualcomm patents analyzed in this report. However, Qualcomm has done the most innovating off of these patents, especially the seminal ,307 patent and the essential waveform ,459 patent. In some cases, Qualcomm's subsequent patents are continuations-in-part or divisional patents to these early CDMA patents. More often, however, Qualcomm's subsequent patents build off of the earlier patents in a way that has helped the company secure the entire CDMA system. Qualcomm has employed a classic patent strategy, namely to use early patent filings to anchor subsequent innovation and product development. And, while this innovation and development was directed to narrowband CDMA technology, at least five Qualcomm patents were identified and analyzed to show how they may specifically relate to products being developed for the new IMT-2000 WCDMA and/or cdma2000 systems. And more importantly, the patents analyzed involve far-reaching, fundamental elements of narrow and wideband CDMA technology. Prior to finding this report (back in July 2000 before I first invested in QCOM), I had asked a similar question of a patent attorney I know at one of the NY law firms that I consult for, who happened to represent one of QCOM's competitors, and received a pretty unequivocal (and "off the record") answer. Reading the report above reinforced my view on this subject, that even after the five "essential" patents expire between 2007 and 2009, the follow-on patents secure QCOM's patent position in CDMA 2000 and WCDMA (and any other "flavor" of CDMA) for the foreseeable commercialization future. However, as the report is careful to point out, translating the strong patent position into royalty bearing licensing deals is another issue entirely, and it's gratifying to see that QCOM management has been as good at this crucial business aspect as they have been at securing the basic technology patent position. I hope this helps answer your question. David T.