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

To: rhet0ric who wrote (11405)	6/11/1998 4:37:00 PM
From: Dave	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 152472

rhetOric: RE: "Patents and Licensing" Once an idea becomes a patent, it becomes public knowledge. The person, or persons, entitled to use this patent are the inventors and whomever they sign agreements with to use it. There are many people who see an idea patented, and think up a modification to it. The next test is whether it would have been obvious to one with knowledge of that technology, or art, to make the modification. (See 35 USC 103) However, there are many inventors who see a patent and think up an unobvious modification. Have you ever heard of Gilbert Hyatt? He had the patent on the basic Integrated Circuit. He is quite known for his "paper" patents. In summary, there is nothing QCOM can do to prevent someone else making a modification to their patents. Once a competitor gets a patent, they could sue and say that the patent is invalid, but they have to prove it is. Remember, one can get a "so-called" expert to say anything. Hope this helps. dave

To: rhet0ric who wrote (11405)	6/11/1998 4:44:00 PM
From: Quincy	Respond to of 152472

But, other companies have been trying to reverse engineer the innards of IS95 and get around Q's patents for about ten years now. Now they are arguing that some of the things they couldn't get around (GPS synchronizing) are actually a "feature." No success as of yet. IBM sold binders of documentation for the PC, XT, and AT models down to the mechanical dimensions of the boards and annotated source code for the motherboard and expansion board roms. This enabled a strong market to grow for aftermarket memory cards and other accessories. Another problem IBM was not using off-the-shelf ASIC solutions from G2 and Chips and Technologies. Both would have simplified the IBM motherboard dramatically (cut chip count from 120 down to 10 plus memory.) These chip sets were partially responsible for Byte magazine featuring a do-it-yourself article (Ciarcia's Circuit Cellar) that would sell you a blank board so you could make your own IBM-XT compatible or AT-compatible (using a passive motherboard.) Qualcomm has a strong benefit of hindsight. We aren't seeing Qcom complaining bitterly about the "clone market" like IBM did. Aren't they encouraging it by signing reasonable licensing agreements and selling ASICS to every company (that wants it) in the industry? Q

To: rhet0ric who wrote (11405)	6/12/1998 2:02:00 AM
From: Ingenious	Respond to of 152472

Reverse engineering patents? Patents, unlike trade secrets, protect a company even if they claim to have reverse engineered in in a "clean room". ON the other hand if a company does not file a patent then trade secrets are there only source of protection. Reverse engineering is legal on trade secrets as long as the party reversing things is not under a non-disclosure (NDA). As you might imagine though very few things are really protectable by trade secret. ONly a few products have this type of coverage. wd-40, coke, m&ms, are just a few. Clean rooms are often used to recreate software protected via copyright. The software must be an original work and not a derivative of the original software hence the need for the clean room. Unfortunately, if software is the proper subject of patents these days so clean rooms are not often used. Also, complex software is hard to recreate. I believe DR-DOS may have been a clean room creation but it is long since dead. Without a great deal of facts, it would be anyones guess outside of Qualcomm legal how much is protected by patents and how much by trade secrets. Also, because IS-95 is a subject to a standards body there are certain requirements for disclosing patents issued and pending as well as licensing for reasonable royalties. Standards bodies make this quite complex.