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Technology Stocks : Qualcomm Incorporated (QCOM) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Michael Allard who wrote (11348)	6/10/1998 11:15:00 AM
From: Gregg Powers	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 152472

Tero: I don't know what you have learned about GSM IPR, so I cannot calibrate whether you are being deliberating disingenuous or not. But there is a very significant and demonstrable body of patent protection around GSM. The GSM standard itself may be public, but in order to build equipment compliant with the standard, you need to license technology from a whole host of European companies (otherwise you will spend the rest of your life defending yourself from patent litigation). Notice for example, when Qualcomm signed its recent agreement with Phillips/Lucent that a CROSS-license was involved where QC got access to Phillips GSM patents. Trust me, your European compatriots have not spent billions inventing and developing TDMA-based GSM only to allow any wayward manufacturer to copy the core technologies. The only difference between GSM and Qualcomm's IPR is that the former is spread amongst many manufacturers throughout Europe while QC, as the major factor behind CDMA's commercialization, is the principal locus for CDMA IPR. Ericsson could have done CDMA first. It could have promulgated a direct sequence spread spectrum standard before Qualcomm and be where the company is today. Ericsson instead chose to pursue TDMA-based GSM until it became apparent that CDMA was going to make significant inroads. At that point, ERICY began architecting a CDMA-based response. In addition, Ericsson wants to level the playing field by creating a new standard, not compatible with IS-95, that still utilizes QC's IPR, in order to minimize Qualcomm's headstart. If that seems fair to you then your view of the world is fundamentally different from mine. Tero..this is really all very simple. If Ericsson can do W-CDMA without incorporating (and thereby infringing) QC's IPR, God bless them. The company should be free to promulgate any standard that it can sell to the world community and go ahead with its business. However, if Ericsson needs QC IPR in order to make W-CDMA work, then Qualcomm has EARNED THE RIGHT TO INFLUENCE THE STANDARD BECAUSE IT CAN REFUSE TO LICENSE ITS PROPERTY FOR USE BY ANOTHER. If I own a house, and you want to sleep there, I have the right to say yes, no or pay me some amount per night for rent. That's the way free enterprise works. If it's in my interest, I can let you stay for nothing. But I also have the unalienable right to say "go away, it's my home." The corollary to the above is also pretty simple. If Ericsson didn't need Qualcomm's IPR, it (a) wouldn't have suggested that it was willing to license it (under certain circumstances) during its last conference call and (b) we wouldn't be having this whole standards debate--Qualcomm would not have anything to say about anything. As I keep repeating, over and over and over, Ericsson would simply ram through its standard, get its buddies around the world to adopt it, and go on its merry way. The FACT THAT THIS DEBATE IS OCCURRING CORROBORATES QUALCOMM'S POSITION THAT IT HAS BLOCKING IPR. REPEAT AFTER ME, IF QUALCOMM DID NOT HAVE A BLOCKING IPR POSITION, THERE WOULD BE NOTHING TO FIGHT ABOUT. IF QUALCOMM DID NOT HAVE A BLOCKING IPR POSITION..... Gregg