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Technology Stocks : Qualcomm Incorporated (QCOM) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Art Bechhoefer who wrote (144339)	8/15/2006 2:16:40 PM
From: scratchmyback	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 152472

<<...a patent obtained by Unocal for a process to make reformulated, low pollution gasoline. Unocal did not assert its patent rights until AFTER the state of California had adopted a standard for low pollution gasoline that would effectively require refiners to use the Unocal patented process. Among the oil companies that cried foul, Exxon claimed that the patent need not be observed because Unocal deliberately influenced the state of California to adopted a standard that would help Unocal. Exxon also claimed the patent was invalid and lost on all its arguments before the patent court and before the FTC. Exxon also lost on appeal, following which the Federal Government adopted more relaxed fuel pollution standards that would not make the Unocal patent (now held by Chevron) essential.>> This is almost completely off topic, but a nice coincidence anyway! The only Finnish oil refinery Neste Oil may have benefitted in a big way from this Unocol/Exxon dispute. It may sound unbelievable, but (thanks to Finnish engineering talent) Neste Oil can refine unleaded CARB (California Air Resources Board) quality gasoline from Russian sour Ural oil, and they actually export a lot of gasoline from Finland to California. It's hard to understand how it can be profitable to export gasoline from Finland to California, obviously the U.S. oil refiners could take a lesson or two from Neste Oil's Finnish engineers! Please don't ask me about IPR in this case, I have no idea if Neste Oil has a license from Unocol, or if Neste Oil is infringing Unocol's patents, or if it is the other way round. Sorry about polluting the board with non-Qualcomm stuff, next time I'll try to stay closer to the topic.