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Technology Stocks : Qualcomm Moderated Thread - please read rules before posting -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: carranza2 who wrote (54611)	8/16/2006 11:22:17 PM
From: phatbstrd	Respond to of 197636

"Shoot, bro', you and I might end up with the keys to the Nokia executive crapper." And there will be a former Nok exec in the washroom as the attendant prominently displaying the wares of the new-old Nok janitorial services. I'm sure some windbag salesman from this thread will be boasting about the IPR lock on 2 ply!

To: carranza2 who wrote (54611)	8/17/2006 10:04:11 AM
From: qveauriche	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 197636

The belated part may well be interesting in light of the FTC's August 2 decision in the Rambus case, wherein it held that Rambus had an obligation to disclose to JEDEC (the SSO in that case) the existence of patents it claimed or had filed for, DESPITE the fact that Rambus had withdrawn from JEDEC in 1996. ftc.gov Crucial to the Commission's decision was compelling evidence of Rambus' efforts to use the information it had gained through JEDEC deliberations to fashion their patent applications to insure the standard ultimately adopted would offend. A thorough understanding of the present case will, as in Rambus, necessarily involve the development of a painstaking chronology. In Rambus, it was clear that Rambus, who was an actual member of JEDEC from 1992 to 1996, was using information gained by virtue of its membership to engineer its designs to insure infringement, and also to amend existing patent applications for the same purpose. So the question for historians is as follows: Was QCOM ever a member of the SSOs in question here; or, if not a member, was QCOM nonetheless able to monitor the progress of the work of these SSOs, and use the information so acquired to design their patents to guarantee infringement? I haven't really paid much attention to this whole mess until recently, but several posters have stated that the infringement occurred only after IS-95 networks were widely adopted by the sale to GSM carriers of certain "enhancements" intended to close the efficiency gap between the two systems. If thats the case, it seems less a case like Rambus of using ETSI deliberations to design and not disclose technology intended to be essential to ETSI standards, but rather an after-the fact (that is, the setting of the standard) incorporation of certain CDMA-based ideas by GSM vendors. For the technologists, this determination should be easy enough to make. Is QCOM claiming in the other lawsuits that it has technology essential to the "Standard", or essential to the latecoming GSM enhancements? As for whether Nokia is conceding that QCOM has essential IPR to something they are doing,it does strike me as odd that Nokia would file a lawsuit in Deleware where it does not place in issue either the validity or applicability of the patents in question. Rather, Nokia's own press release describes the two-pronged action as follows. THE FIRST PRONG <<ESPOO, Finland, August 9 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Nokia (NYSE: NOK ) announced today that it has filed a complaint against Qualcomm with the Delaware Court of Chancery in the U.S. Nokia is asking the Court to order Qualcomm to abide by its written contractual obligations to international standards setting organizations to license intellectual property essential to GSM and UMTS technology standards on fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms. >> Of note here is that Nokia seems to be asking the court to going beyond what Courts often do when dealing with FRAND, which is typically deciding whether FRAND concepts are sufficiently embodied within a given licensing scheme. Nokia is also asking the court to direct QCOM to license the technology on FRAND terms, and perhaps even to spell out in some detail what FRAND would require in this instance. This is in the nature of the sort of affirmative injunctive relief ( that is, where a court orders a party to do something as opposed to merely ordering them to refrain from doing something) that, though it can be granted, courts typically shy away from doing. That Nokia would seek such an extreme form of injunctive relief is even more remarkable given that in the second prong Nokia is asking the same court to hold that QCOM is not entitled to the much more traditional form of injunctive relief QCOM is apparently seeking in other actions to enjoin (that is, prohibit) Nokia from selling infringing products.In other words, Nokia is asking the court to rule that QCOM is not entitled to an injunction QCOM has not even sought from that court. Is such an issue even ripe for determination in Delaware? Is it made ripe by the assertion by QCOM of such a claim for relief in other, perhaps more jurisdictionally appropriate fora (see full faith and credit point below)? I don't know. I'm just asking? THE SECOND PRONG The Nokia press release continues: <<Additionally, Nokia is seeking a Court order to affirm that Qualcomm is not entitled to injunctive relief in relation to alleged infringement of patents declared essential to a standard.>> This is ambiguous, but the most likely interpretation of this is that Nokia is simply asking the court to conclude that QCOM is not entitled to injunctive relief for the patent infringements because QCOM has an adequate remedy at law,which is to say that QCOM can be adequately compensated for any infringement with a monetary award. Though a challenge to the patents themselves isn't inconsistent with the statement, the statement neither expressly states nor invites the reader to infer such a challenge. So the question remains, why did Nokia bring the fight to Delaware when it is already joined in other jurisdictions? And, having brought it to Delaware, why didn't it bring the entire fight? Why did Nokia confine itself to two claims which only address the relief to which QCOM is entitled if QCOM prevails on the patents? A final comment. I'm a bit confused by Nokia's choice of forum. Any decision reached by the Delaware Chancery Court is not binding on any other nation, or for that matter any other state, which raises another catacomb of complexity. The Full Faith and Credit issues the NOK/BRCM/QCOM cases will spawn could by itself take years to litigate.