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

To: Clarksterh who wrote (16899)	10/21/1998 9:57:00 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Respond to of 152472

Oops, sorry if removing your general comments on patents from context diluted the meaning. Back on WLL and ADSL. ADSL at 1 Mbps is too slow. WLL users will be wanting high speed high resolution high Mbps service available on WLL or fibre. ADSL is expensive isn't it? Don't really know, but saw some figures which surprised me by being high. Maybe just introductory high and bandwidth prices have a long way to drop. But people are noted for liking speed. 1 Mbps doesn't seem fast enough. And would it have the features of a cdma2000 WLL system based on IP? QUALCOMM was selling licences, for example to Nokia, Motorola, and others about 1990 or 1991. And raising money by share sales and partnerships before that, so they were commercializing cdma in mobile well before the first fully commercial service in Hong Kong in late 1995. Don't forget the AirTouch service which was introduced to paying customers in Los Angeles in early 1995 - it didn't work well, but it was commercial. ERICY then waited until after their negotiations on an IS-95 licence broke down [about Oct 96] before filing suit. I'd have to dig back, but there was the near-far problem, failure under load, power control and I was sure soft handoff as elements of IS-95 which were alleged to be too hopeless to try to make work, other than with chicken wire and bubble gum in a late to market, collapsing, uneconomic, fraud. I suppose QUALCOMM has made copies of all the proven wrong claims with a view to handling just such a situation as the patent disputes. Mqurice

To: Clarksterh who wrote (16899)	10/21/1998 10:46:00 PM
From: Ingenious	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 152472

Another reason could be that the patents they are asserting date back to 1988 but issued or re-issued only recently. Prior to GATT, it was common practice to keep key technology in the PTO by filing continuation patents. Perhaps Ericson filed a succession of continuation patents claiming priority to 1988 but not issuing until 1995-1996 time frame. This allowed E to make claims to new technology other companies developed in the public arena yet disclosed in their original patent dated 1988. This technique affectionately called a "submarine patent" allowed people, such as Lemelson and others, to "spring" a patent on another party when the technology flowered yet avoid defenses such as laches (ie sitting on your thumbs). Also, E may have also filed reissue patents within 2 years of the issuance of the latest patents which allowed them to modify the patents to read directly on competing technology. (Just for the record, post GATT (about June, 1995) submarine patents are no longer possible).