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

To: Stock Farmer who wrote (76850)	5/3/2008 3:24:51 PM
From: carranza2	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 197252

I think you got the 'specificity' issue right. Because a spa or tpb contract confers extraordinary benefits to a party which has not negotiate for them, both the common law and civilian legal regimes require that the object of the contract be specific. I don't think an undertaking to act FRANDly is specific enough to create third part rights. The fact that ETSI does not set rates and relegates the parties to commercial negotiations kills NOK's arguments, in my opinion. If ETSI had said no more than 5 percent, NOK may have had a case. i

To: Stock Farmer who wrote (76850)	5/4/2008 10:42:39 AM
From: whisperer	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 197252

Just as the standard forces implementors to infringe upon patents, it also forces patent holders to grant licenses. It maintains a balance. This should be obvious. If a standard forces implementors to infringe, without incorporating any counterbalance, then presto, the rights of all patent holders are magnified, and the remedies of the implementors are diminished to zero. Either infringe or be excluded from the market? In order for an implementor to consider entering the market, they require certainty of acquiring 100% of the necessary licenses. Having 99.99% of licensed patents and one injunction just won't do. I wouldn't find it surprising if an IPR policy of a standards body worked that way. Implicitly or explicitly. I agree that the act of creating a standard, by definition, tips the balance in favor of the patent holders. The ETSI agreement, therefore, explicitly states that patent holders are required to offer an irrevocable license on FRAND terms. This in itself restores the balance, in my opinion. The interpretation that the patent holder implicitly has granted an automatic license, would tip the balance in favor of the implementor and would go against the spirit of the ETSI agreement. Maybe it is so important that it goes without saying? I wouldn't show up for a dinner party just dressed in a thong but you can rest assured I don't get many invitations that say "no thongs please". Sometimes things are contextual. That analogy isn’t quite accurate. An exhaustive listing of all the gazillion things you can’t do would be virtually impossible. The list of things that you are required to do, is a lot shorter and it’s reasonable to expect those to be explicitly stated (such as “formal attire required”). -W