IMHO, NOK is taking things from past trials where they REALLY got messed up and putting forth just enough effort so that WHEN they get in court, they will have plausible denial of fact such that a jury of peers ( or on technical matters, complete and utter idiots without a clue), will be swayed by the pleading, crying, misleading PRs etc.
IMHO they are taking the IDC trial stuff plus a few others where they got their butts nailed to the wall, and trying to setup a "we tried at best" defense.
So they will have a giant stall in paying the treble damages they should owe.
And then after they get an award, they will stall, cry, BS, pr release their way to making that HALF, JUST LIKE THEY DID IN THE IDCC case.
Now I would bet that IF Qualcomm got 4.5% to 5% royalties, they would WAIVE the penalties. Perhaps in this day and age, even 4%. BUT I would think that they would NOT reduce this any further NOR would they back down in any other way.
The IDCC case, just as an FYO was awarded $100's of millions to IDCC from NOKIA. NOK went back the court for 2-3 years, whining, which is about as kind as I can be of their tactics and got it reduced to something like $250M. Then they acted just like any other civil trial settlement, OJ included. "You got the settlement, now TRY to collect".
I know I type fast and rough, my style. (DRIVES ERICL CRAZY.....(8^))))). I can type giant formal memos and long audacious reports with absolutely correct spelling, tons of supporting facts, spend time researching and finding PR that supports my point, and a giant vocabulary. I can even call someone disingenuous and KNOW what it means. I don't take the time and care that Gregg Powers did nor can I think in text like he does.
BUT IMHO, this whole thing has gone pretty silent while both sides are negotiating to a settlement. What are the possible downsides?
1. NOK gets 4%. Ok, this means PROBABLY that a few of the best customers of Qualcomm will get a rate reduction. And this may mean a penny or two EPS drop. But let's look at the possible upside. The market and license will be clear for many years to come. The revenue stream on WCDMA would be clear. So IF, and I have no idea where both parties are, they even went so far as 3%, it would be as huge a win as the ERICY thing was in 1999. It would open the WCDMA world and possibly the UMTS, LTE, UMG world wide open. No questions, just do it. It would mean the other half of the GSM CABAL had blinked.
2. It would lock down the patents and license again.
3. NOK would most probably have to settle up on many patents as part of the settlement. The $20m is the down payment, but more like $100M. But in order to get step 1, I would give up step 3. In fact, if I were Qualcomm, I would even offer as part of Step 1 to put the offending patents back into the GSM base GRATIS so that EVERYONE in GSM has a clear and free ride. This would be huge for all the EDGE and GPRS crowd as well.
4. NOK would have to agree to give up the EU action and being any part of it, withdraw their name, and rescind the action. This would mean that the others in the case would have a serious reconsideration before them to see if they had enough Cajones to stand alone.
5. Unless NOK starts to actually play fair the old fashion way, which is to make a good product, delivery quality stuff, pay the going rate...all the stuff that REAL companies do, they face loosing the entire market share. I know the NOK guys, in their arrogance, will spit out their coffee all over themselves and immediately begin to type a response, but one only has to look and admit ( like an alcoholic...) they have a problem in loosing market share world wide. They are the king of cheap. They misfire regularly on the high end. The world is going to mid to high end everywhere EXCEPT India and China, and once they convert that market with cheap, it is going to do the replacements with mid level. And as I suggested about 24 month ago, which is now out there in products, at any time the high end guy can DECIDE to cut down the chipset and make a low end product.
So I have seen a lot of "the sky is falling". I have no idea which way it will fall ultimately, but I know a few things.
There have been many detractors from Irwin over the last 22 years that I have known and worked for him. They yell at him, call him names, and insult his products and people. He does not sit down and retaliate with BS. NO, I can tell you for a fact this is not true. I sat with him right after "Jacobs Patter". He was very upset. But he said something to me which I will not forget that day in 1998. "We will simply have to go make the technology and products so compelling that we just prove these guys wrong".
So in 1998 he and Don Schrock and Sanjay and a few others with strategic goals for the group, mapped out how to bring WCDMA, GSM, and UMTS out to the world, TECHNICALLY better than everyone, working out the problems, making it work on the networks out there. Not go send out PR to every newspaper. Not go file antitrust suits, but "Let's go play in their half of the basketball court and take the ball away when they are not looking.” So in 2000 to 2003, there was not a lot of "the GSM crowd is fools" PR, there was "here is the technology and here is how it is done". They bought GSM companies, bought European divisions, entrenched themselves in how to make the carriers successful and handset developers successful.
So now that the GSM people started quantifying what is happening, saw that they are starting to loose the market share to people enabled by Qualcomm chipsets, they got all hung up on how to stop it, not how to WIN it. Not how to regain the absolute technical excellence, not how to make WCDMA and the next technology work, but how to stop the others so that their lesser technology and sloppy preparation can be what everyone has to settle for.
I do not know the outcome of the arbitration nor do I know the progress. But I trust one person who I have trusted for many years with much of my personal net worth. I know that he has only one way to win. Go make the technically most excellent product and let it sell itself.
Take care. |
