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Technology Stocks : The *NEW* Frank Coluccio Technology Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ftth who wrote (20487)	3/28/2007 12:46:41 PM
From: Frank A. Coluccio	Respond to of 46821

Bruce Kushnick shines some interesting light on the Vonage story on Cybertelecom.org discussion list: ---begin Bruce: Vonage, patents? Does anyone know if Vonage knew that they were violating patents - or whether other companies are doing the same thing? And, has anyone audited the Bell companies' books to see if the lawyers being used, or even the development of the patents, were 'cross-subisidized? This is from an audit of Pac Bell by the California Commission. B. (b) Legal Expenses 1. Legal Expenses Allocated from Parent to Pacific Overland finds that SBC improperly allocated to Pacific legal fees associated with SBC's work on 1) Constitutional issues regarding the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (1996 Act), 2) Section 271 long distance service applications pursuant to the 1996 Act, and 3) Pacific's participation in the AT&T/Media One merger proceeding. We agree, and reduce Pacific's expense by $982,000 for 1998 and $484,000 for 1999 on a Pacific Bell Total Company basis, as we discuss below. Pacific claims that each of the three matters "relate to SBC legal activities benefiting both regulated and non-regulated subsidiaries," but as TURN points out, Pacific nowhere explains that benefit or demonstrates that the expense directly applied to the utility's regulated activities. While Pacific lists several obligations that the 1996 Act imposes on the regulated utility, it never claims that its litigation of the constitutional issues and the Section 271 long distance application raised those issues. Thus, we agree with TURN that, "Pacific Bell has failed to demonstrate that these costs meet the utility's own standard." <http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/PUBLISHED/COMMENT_DECISION/29330.htm#P954_208854#P95 4_208854> 217 TURN further notes that "Pacific Bell did not even bother with the pretense of citing aspects of [the AT&T/Media One merger] that might have implications for its regulated operations." Because Pacific concedes that "[r]elevance and direct application to Pacific's regulated operations guides whether or not these legal costs are attributable to Pacific," and Pacific makes no such showing, we disallow the expenses and adopt Overland's recommendation. The intrastate regulatory after-tax amounts are $439,000 in 1998 and $212,000 in 1999 as shown in Appendix A. ------

To: ftth who wrote (20487)	3/28/2007 10:35:25 PM
From: ftth	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 46821

related to the patent discussion, see: itif.org for some presentations/videos.

To: ftth who wrote (20487)	3/29/2007 2:58:06 AM
From: waitwatchwander	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 46821

Anti-competitive patenting thoughts of David Dull, Broadcom. Message 23368293 No doubt patents and competition go hand-in-hand and I agree whole heartedly with all your comments. There is and always will be a fine line between milking one's dairy cow and using crown land to fatten up one's beef herd. As you implied some may, I see those matters more as adjunct issues rather than a direct outcome of the patenting process. The telecommunications industry is particularly impacted by patenting and joint development initiatives because of the need for technical standardization. Throw globalization into that pot and it is amazing that the developed swampland even looks like Disneyland. Without intervention, markets are more than adequate for determining the size and cutting up of the economic pie. Isn't a market just the culmination of innovation, product development and service provision? The push and pull of pie cutting and baking bigger pies is an ongoing saga. Simple is never easy.