Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Broadcom -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Elmer who wrote (13)	3/8/1998 6:49:00 PM
From: ftth	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 78

Hi Dave, to some extent they do, but it varies case by case. When designing products for consumer applications, even if a company has a patent on say, the method of adaptive equalization, unless it provides some clear advantage over everyone else's product, the patent really doesn't do much for the company. All the products for a given application (offered by all competing companies) have to perform a minimum set of functions, to a minimum standard; if that is achievable using a more mundane approach, the patent doesn't buy much. If you're interested in Broadcom's patents (not including pending, of course), go here: patents.ibm.com This is IBM's patent search engine. Enter "broadcom" in the search field. If you had a particular instance in mind for your question, I'll try to answer it, but remember, it will only be an opinion. The business strategy behind a patent is often more important than the patent itself, and all I could do is guess at that. dh