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

To: limtex who wrote (62128)	4/7/2007 12:50:25 AM
From: matherandlowell	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 197028

"Somone in Q who understands the technology and patent issues must have woken up one day this week and said " wait a minute, we don't actually use any of their patents" and Q is now looking into this in detail" I suspect that this happened 5 years ago at QCOM, not 5 days ago. QCOM has never conceded that it used Nokia's patents. So the present legal standoff: Nokia has used the Q's patents and paid for them. QCOM has satisfied their obligation to license their patents on FRAND terms. Both parties agreed to what those terms were. Now Nokia threatens to intentionally violate the license agreement. As of next Wednesday, Nokia will use QCOM's patents without a valid license. At that point, their only defense can be that they have "elected" the option and will live by its terms. Otherwise, they have violated the terms of the license and, according to Lupin, stand to lose the license. At that point, QCOM has still fulfilled its obligation to license Nokia on FRAND terms. The obligation was to license on FRAND terms once, not twice. If Nokia violates the terms of the license next week, and a court agrees that they are in breach, then there would be legal grounds to cancel Nokia's license and QCOM might not have any obligation to give them a new one. If Nokia tries to sue QCOM, they might also be in violation of their license and the option to extend, as QCOM argued in its motion for arbitration. Yeah, I'd say Nokia was playing a bad hand. Upside: a possible reduction in royalty payments, downside: injunctions against 3G and EDGE GSM products. I must agree with Maurice that Nokia should fold before Tuesday. To go beyond Tuesday puts the future of their business at real risk. I think that it's check and checkmate but I think that the endgame was planned years, not weeks, ago. j.