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

To: matherandlowell who wrote (59195)	1/26/2007 7:25:51 PM
From: slacker711	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 197360

Why else would anyone pay any terms (FRANDLY or not) if they weren't using the patents (infringing)? I think the decision to pay royalties is far more complex than that. Companies may decide to settle because they dont want to face the expense of a court case and the chance that they will face worse consequences for a loss (even if they consider this to be a low probability event). They may even pay for patents that they dont consider to be valid. A recent example....RIMM paid off NTP for their patents on wireless e-mail which are almost universally believed to be invalid. The problem was that it was going to take a few years for the patent office to review the patents....and rather than risk their business model, they settled for hundreds of millions of dollars. Another example....most think that Qualcomm bought off IDCC in the mid-90's rather than fight because they didnt want to get dragged into court while they were attempting to convince operators to deploy CDMA. I just dont think that a previous license is going to work as proof that a license is now needed. On top of everything else, Q's early patents are set to expire in the next few years. Slacker