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


To: scratchmyback who wrote (59666)2/2/2007 3:43:39 PM
From: Maurice Winn  Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 197247
 
I think the actual quote is, "Fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice ... you can't do it again" ... King George II in some speech. Google would of course have the correct quote.

On the case which is important, the W-CDMA one, QUALCOMM had always and consistently explained, [since back in 1996, when the GSM Guild started saying that they had invented CDMA and that QCOM was irrelevant to their promulgated VW-40 standard], that QUALCOMM would require the normal payments for their CDMA technology, which was indeed part of the VW-40 intentions to have programs to produce WMDs.

The W-CDMA [aka VW-40] gang continued on, blithely and arrogantly, with L M Ericsson finally caving in early 1999 and admitting that indeed L M Ericsson hadn't invented CDMA back in 1890 and that QCOM did in fact own it. Always, QCOM said they would require payment and at their normal rate.

The idiot and criminally greedy GSM Guild went ahead and fooled the gullible service providers into bidding $100 billion on spectrum for the dopey cancer-causing long-delayed [which was great for GSM profits] 2GHz W-CDMA standard to be inflicted on the Euroserfs when CDMA2000 should have been installed at 450MHz/800MHz/900MHz. The GSM Guild went ahead and stole QCOM intellectual property to upgrade GSM and produce GPRS and EDGE. Nokia is now being hauled before court to answer for their actions. Others are on notice from QCOM.

Mqurice



To: scratchmyback who wrote (59666)2/2/2007 4:07:08 PM
From: slacker711  Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 197247
 
Even if the law does/did not require Qualcomm or Unocal to be more open in the standards setting process, obviously the standards setting organization and also the other participants feel they have been screwed. Unocal may have won in the court once, but do you think they could do the same trick another time? And can Qualcomm do it again?

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.


While there can be some debate on the requirement of Qualcomm's GPRS/EDGE patent disclosures, we all know that isnt the heart of the dispute.

The CDMA patents were disclosed in a timely fashion and any company/investor who wasnt aware of Q's royalty demands must have spent the late 90's in a bubble induced fog. It simply isnt credible to state in way shape or form that Qualcomm has been deceptive about what they were going to charge for WCDMA. The real mystery lies in the licensing agreements that other companies have signed. How much is Nokia charging the Chinese WCDMA/GSM handset manufacturers? How about LG or Pantech? Nobody knows....

Slacker



To: scratchmyback who wrote (59666)2/3/2007 5:08:37 PM
From: Art Bechhoefer  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 197247
 
Unocal may have won in the court once, but do you think they could do the same trick another time?

I mentioned the case because Unocal prevailed in both trial and appellate courts, and the Supreme Court denied Exxon's request for a hearing. Also, the California regulators were happy with the standard, irrespective of who owned the critical patent, because the standard made it possible to produce gasoline economically, without the usual pollution and contamination effects of gasoline with other additives. The Unocal patent case, having been affirmed at the appellate level, is now the law of the land.

There is a precedent here, which I believe applies to QUALCOMM, in that the Supreme Court, in denying certiorari, in effect upheld the lower courts, which said there was nothing wrong with a company urging regulators to adopt its patented product into a standard. That was the very issue of the case; namely, whether a patent in a standard adopted by regulators, without the knowledge that a particular company patent was involved, still was valid and enforceable. The courts said yes.

Art