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Technology Stocks : WDC/Sandisk Corporation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Pam who wrote (27780)	3/29/2005 1:17:11 PM
From: slacker711	Respond to of 60323

It was a general question and I am not suggesting any changes in Sandisk's strategy to license their IP and collect fees. I just wanted to understand if one can refuse to license the technology to competitors if one chooses to? I think you can...but in the case of standards based flash cards (SD, miniSD, etc), I would guess that membership requires that your license requirements are reasonable and non-discriminating. They might be able to withhold a license for fundamental flash IP or for something like MLC. Eli has definitely made it sound like they thought long and hard about licensing MLC. Perhaps they could refuse to license Micron and the other newcomers. Slacker

To: Pam who wrote (27780)	3/29/2005 2:46:08 PM
From: Art Bechhoefer	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 60323

Pam, regarding licensing, I believe a company, once it has issued a license, MUST offer that license to anyone on the same terms, unless the licensing arrangement grants exclusive rights to a particular company. Anything else would be discriminatory and an unfair business practice. In regard to the recent news on Tower Semiconductor, does SanDisk use Tower exclusively for its controller requirements, or does SanDisk have other sources? Finally, unrelated to the above, I'e been watching the declining stock price of UMC and wonder if SanDisk still has UMC shares or a claim on the shares it formerly owned, but which were stolen from its Taiwan based attorney. Does anyone know if SanDisk's UMC investment is now a total loss, or if there is some prospect for recovery of the earlier $500 million writeoff? Art