For an idea of real winning in IP fights: Nokia losing to Qualcomm
For an idea of what is real money and real winning in these IP fights, look at the settlement Qualcomm forced Nokia to take:
http://articles.latimes.com/2008/oct/17/business/fi-qualcomm17
"Qualcomm Inc., the San Diego-based chip maker, will receive about $2.3 billion as part of a royalty-fight settlement with Nokia Corp., the world's leading maker of cellphones.
The one-time payment ..."
Observe the press at that time took no notice of how unusual an immediate multi-billion dollar payment was. In retrospect there was no evidence Nokia actually successfully bargained for the rights to Qualcomm's CDMA IP, IP that is vital for working on Verizon's US CDMA network.
Also the press had no idea who had the most valuable future IP:
"Qualcomm makes much of its money licensing its technology to wireless carriers and handset makers. It has a near monopoly on the cellphone chip technology in 3G phones.
But Qualcomm does not have the same lock on the next-generation phone technology, which is growing in popularity in Europe. Nokia wanted to pay a lower rate over the long term, given the changing market, industry analysts said.
Qualcomm's 3G technology is "peaking out and will fade for the next 20 years," said Edward Snyder, principal analyst at Charter Equity Research."
Look how badly the press misled its readers at that time. In reality Nokia was already disinvesting from wireless modems, despite half a decade previous bragging it and former fab partner TI had a complete wireless solution stack, and would in a couple of years sell that business off. Furthermore in a couple of years Nokia for its higher end phones would be forced to come crawling to Qualcomm for its complete ARM SoC and would be forced to ditch its own phone OS in favor of Microsoft Windows Phone, an OS that was supported only an Qualcomm chips. And we know the rest of what happened to Nokia's phone business.
Now that's winning an IP fight. And at the time no one in the press knew what a complete victory Qualcomm had won versus Nokia. What Apple "won" today is completely inconsequential.
For an idea of what is real money and real winning in these IP fights, look at the settlement Qualcomm forced Nokia to take:
http://articles.latimes.com/2008/oct/17/business/fi-qualcomm17
"Qualcomm Inc., the San Diego-based chip maker, will receive about $2.3 billion as part of a royalty-fight settlement with Nokia Corp., the world's leading maker of cellphones.
The one-time payment ..."
Observe the press at that time took no notice of how unusual an immediate multi-billion dollar payment was. In retrospect there was no evidence Nokia actually successfully bargained for the rights to Qualcomm's CDMA IP, IP that is vital for working on Verizon's US CDMA network.
Also the press had no idea who had the most valuable future IP:
"Qualcomm makes much of its money licensing its technology to wireless carriers and handset makers. It has a near monopoly on the cellphone chip technology in 3G phones.
But Qualcomm does not have the same lock on the next-generation phone technology, which is growing in popularity in Europe. Nokia wanted to pay a lower rate over the long term, given the changing market, industry analysts said.
Qualcomm's 3G technology is "peaking out and will fade for the next 20 years," said Edward Snyder, principal analyst at Charter Equity Research."
Look how badly the press misled its readers at that time. In reality Nokia was already disinvesting from wireless modems, despite half a decade previous bragging it and former fab partner TI had a complete wireless solution stack, and would in a couple of years sell that business off. Furthermore in a couple of years Nokia for its higher end phones would be forced to come crawling to Qualcomm for its complete ARM SoC and would be forced to ditch its own phone OS in favor of Microsoft Windows Phone, an OS that was supported only an Qualcomm chips. And we know the rest of what happened to Nokia's phone business.
Now that's winning an IP fight. And at the time no one in the press knew what a complete victory Qualcomm had won versus Nokia. What Apple "won" today is completely inconsequential.
