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

To: Raymond who wrote (12444)	7/16/1998 7:48:00 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 152472

Yes Raymond, this is a very high stakes IPR situation. If Qualcomm was shown to be in breach of Ericsson patents, it would make a very weak negotiating position for Qualcomm. I suppose it would be like winning a very big lottery for Ericsson in that they have done almost nothing on CDMA [despite claims they invented it] and to have the luck to have Qualcomm ignore their patent and blunder on using it illegally would be a multibillion $ windfall for them. I'm sure Qualcomm is sensible enough to have scrutinized the most intricate and arcane aspects of any patents in the field and has not stolen any of it. In the end though, a court can decide anything it likes and countries are sovereign so they can declare Qualcomm in breach of anything they like and that's that. But only the big countries, like USA, can do that with impunity. If Europe was to declare Ericsson and Philips the inventors of all aspects of CDMA for mobile, then I'm sure the USA political and military system would do a bit of leaning. The USA and most of Europe has a reasonable history of protecting IPR, so I doubt that there is a significant risk of arbitrary theft. So, I take it on trust that Qualcomm has done the right thing with their patent lawyers and engineers and the IPR rights are clear. Any Ericsson suit is, I believe, more a charade and hope than a legitimate claim. A bit like Interdigital managed to pressure Qualcomm enough with some dubious claims to get a payout to clear the way for Qualcomm without worrying about some court case coming up. Since Qualcomm hasn't seen fit to cross license Ericsson, nor make payment or other allowance, I guess they are not at all worried about the alleged patent infringement. I don't believe there will be a problem. Mqurice