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

To: OrionX who wrote (23253)	2/23/1999 1:40:00 PM
From: Richard Habib	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 213173

The Firewire pool has been mentioned I think. This article expands and mentions the 0.25 per device charge. It's unclear whether that charge is split among the 3 holders of relevant Firewire patents. Licensing deal calls for 1394 IP patent pool RELATED SYMBOLS: (SNE)(AAPL) Feb. 22, 1999 (Electronic Engineering Times - CMP via COMTEX) -- Cupertino, Calif. - A month-long anxiety over licensing issues surrounding the 1394 bus specification appears at an end, thanks to a deal last week in which the major backers of the protocol will form a patent pool to license intellectual property. Last week, Apple Computer Inc. was joined by Compaq, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd., Philips Electronics, Sony Corp. and Toshiba Corp. in announcing the deal, which defuses a scheme hatched in January in which Apple had suggested charging as much as $1 per port to new licensees for the four-year-old technology. The six companies will work to create a joint licensing program and promote the industry-wide adoption of IEEE1394. The Apple idea sparked a splinter group of designers bent on crafting 1394B, an 800-Mbit/second version of the interface called "Apple-free B." Sony provided impetus The agreement announced last week was pushed by Sony, which argued that a $1 per-port charge would all but kill the protocol's expansion into consumer applications. "Sony and the consumer-electronics people saw this coming. They didn't want a 1394B with dramatic differences in soft-ware patents and back bridges," said one source familiar with 1394's workings. 1394 sources said the new agreement would allow for a charge on essential patents of about 25 cents per system. The spec offers data-transfer rates of up to 400 Mbits/s, and committees are working on a 1-Gbit next-generation version. "I think it's a good deal that Apple has backed away from going after the industry with what I consider to be a punitive licensing agreement," said James Snyder, head of the 1394 Trade Association. Snyder said he remains puzzled about what motivated Apple to charge $1 per port in January. The trade association chairman also said details of the patent-pooling structure still must be worked out. -Additional reporting by Junko Yoshida. -0- By: Brian Fuller Copyright 1999 CMP Media Inc. (Public Company & Wall Street & Business) A service of the Financial Data Cast Network (FDCN) and Window On WallStreet Inc.