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

To: rkral who wrote (144529)	8/25/2006 4:57:44 PM
From: BDAZZ	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 152472

>>Uncanny!<< Yes, and the board has been through all this and I have to believe that QCOM knows these rules far better than anyone including the writer. What weakens the article as a pertinent point is that QCOM disclosed the GSM IPR usage and has been in talks with Nokia for sometime over its license obligation. Also, in all of Nokia's counter charges they have not (to my knowledge) claimed patent ambush. Also, if Nokia had a clear case of patent ambush or any other abuse by QCOM they would not be pushing for arbitration. Using IDCC as a case of Nokia's past MO for arbitration suggests that Nokia knows they are liable, but wants some kind of compromise short of the one Jim proposes.

To: rkral who wrote (144529)	8/26/2006 3:10:17 AM
From: lml	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 152472

Don't necessarily think the article whose link you posted is so "uncanny" to the situation. These issues come up all the time. But, let's take a look at some of the law provided by the article. "An equitable estoppel typically arises in these cases when a patent owner makes a misleading communication that it will not enforce its patent, and an infringer reasonably relies upon that communication to continue or expand its business. The communication itself can take almost any form, including conduct or silence, as long as it supports a reasonable inference that the patent will not be enforced. However, in order to show reliance, the infringer must have been lulled into a false sense of security with regard to continuing or expanding its operations. Consequently, silence alone is generally not enough to create an estoppel, unless the patent owner also has some other duty to disclose its patent position." What we have here, & I defer to you & others as to the facts of this case, as I haven't read the complaints & response of either party, & it appears that you & possibly others have, so allow me some leeway, & correct me where I am inaccurate, is no communication relating to Q's essential IPRs in the GSM/GPRS/EDGE standard, correct? So, applying the law of equitable estoppel, not only does NOK have the burden to show that Q mislead NOK by failing to communicate its IPRs in the GSM/GPRS/EDGE standard (by providing convincing evidence that Q knew that such IPRs were part of the standard & communicated nothing or communicated that such IPRs would never be enforced) AND that NOK reasonably relied upon such silence or communication that Q's IPRs in the standard would not be enforced. I've glossed over the memorandum of Ps & As in the link you provided. Question I have is can you locate a copy of that 2001 agreement referenced in the memo filed with the ITC? Its one thing for NOK to assert the intent of the Agreement, to cite years of negotiation, correspondence, & emails, but most likely the contract has an integration clause, which means you can toss out all preceding correspondences, emails, drafts, conversations -- the written doc represents the entire agreement. So, unless the 2001 Agreement explicitly, or implicitly states, what NOK asserts in the memo is support of the motion to terminate or suspend the investigation, it is swimming upstream w/o a paddle. I haven't seen the motion, so I don't know what evidence exists to support the motion. I don't see any language taken from the 2001 Agreement that would support the assertions made in the memorandum. The fact that the memorandum makes reference to years of negotiations, "scores of face-to-face and telephonic negotiation sessions," is an indication to me that NOK's defense in this matter is weak. Notwithstanding, the motion's purpose, as represented by the memorandum, is to move the investigation to arbitration. This is another indication to me that NOK is not confident that an ITC investigation will lead to an outcome favorable to its interests.