Qualcomm to ring up more CDMA royalties
86610
The merger between Sprint and Nextel is not only a boon for the two cell phone companies but also for San Diego wireless giant Qualcomm.
15347
Qualcomm Incorporated, pioneer and world leader of Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) digital wireless technology, on October 1 announced the opening of a research and development (R&amp;D) center in Hyderabad, India.
317897
Wireless chipmaker Qualcomm  Inc.  on Thursday raised its estimates for the current  quarter, but a new investigation related to a patent dispute  showed it was still mired in legal woes.
383675
NEW YORK -- Qwest Communications International Inc. has increased its offer for MCI Inc. by nearly $1 billion as Verizon Communications Inc. continues talks with MCI about a rival bid, according to a report.
220491
(InfoWorld) - BroadcomÂ and Verizon Wireless have reached a deal that will allow Verizon to continue importing and selling phones that are the subject of continuing litigation between Broadcom and Qualcomm. On June 7, the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC)Â banned the importation of new models of phones and PDAs that hit the market after that day and include certain Qualcomm chips. Broadcom had sued the rival mobile chip vendor over alleged patent infringement. Under a licensing agreement, Verizon will pay Broadcom $6 for every handset, PDA, or data card that uses EvDO (Evolution-Data Optimized) mobile broadband technology. The carrier will make the payments up to a ceiling of $40 million per calendar quarter and a lifetime maximum of $200 million. As part of the deal, Verizon also will drop an effort to overturn the ruling. Other terms are confidential, according to a statement released by the two companies. The move is a blow to Qualcomm, which pioneered the CDMAÂ technology on which EvDO is based. Verizon is the largest carrier in the U.S. using EvDO. It will pay Broadcom to license technology that Qualcomm has argued does not belong to Broadcom in the first place. Qualcomm was not immediately available for comment. In addition to the licensing deal, Broadcom has entered a strategic alliance with Verizon Communications, the parent company of Verizon Wireless. That deal covers new mobile device chipsets as well as Bluetooth, wireless LAN, optical network, GPS, DSL, fiber, set-top box, and home network equipment components. Broadcom, in Irvine, California, makes chips for a wide range of wired and wireless network products. Qualcomm, in nearby San Diego, is focused on wireless technology. Qualcomm said last month it would try to convince President George Bush to overturn the June 7 ruling, which was effective immediately. Bush has 60 days to decide whether to take action. If he doesn't, Qualcomm could appeal the ruling in federal court. The June 7 ruling came after the ITC ruled last year that Qualcomm had infringed on a Broadcom patent for power management technology. Broadcom had said the system is used in essentially all EvDO and Wideband CDMA phones.
53605
(InfoWorld) - Nokia Corp.'s patent licensing deal with Trimble Navigation Ltd. this week could give the phone maker an important boost in an ongoing dispute with CDMA developer Qualcomm Inc. The dealÂ gives Nokia a license for 700 Trimble technologies for delivering location-based services, as well as exclusive rights to sublicense them to other companies in the wireless industry. That means any company that wants to license Trimble's patents must now do so through Nokia. Nokia officials stopped short of calling the deal just what it needs to end itsÂ acrimonious renegotiation talks with Qualcomm. But they acknowledged that it will strengthen Nokia's hand in licensing talks with all wireless companies that include GPS (Global Positioning Systems) capabilities in their products. "It will improve our negotiating position," said Ulla James, director of intellectual property rights strategic marketing for Nokia. Trimble has one of the biggest portfolios of patents for location-based technologies, and any company that offers such capabilities will now need to talk to Nokia, she said. Qualcomm integrates GPS capabilities in many of its chipsets, including its gpsOne product. The company has shipped tens of millions of such chipsets in the past few years, said Nitesh Patel, a senior analyst at Strategy Analytics Inc. "Given that Nokia can sublicense to whoever it wants to and on whatever terms it wishes to, it has a strong bargaining position with Qualcomm with respect to GPS," Patel wrote in an e-mail. He cautioned that Qualcomm might already have a long-term contract with Trimble that could supersede the arrangement between Nokia and Trimble. Qualcomm declined requests for comment, and Nokia would not discuss how the deal might affect its negotiations with Qualcomm specifically. Nokia and Qualcomm are engaged in a bitter renegotiation of a patent licensing agreement that ends in April 2007. The companies license a variety of patents from each other relating to mobile phone standards. Qualcomm is well-known for developing the CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) standard and Nokia patents contribute to the WCDMA (Wideband CDMA) and other standards. Qualcomm has launched several lawsuits against Nokia for alleged patent infringement and Nokia, along with five other mobile vendors, has filed an anticompetitive complaint against Qualcomm with the European Commission. Nokia played down the significance of the April deadline. If the two sides don't reach agreement by then, they will both be able to continue selling their respective products in any case, James said. It is "normal practice" for two companies in a renegotiation process to continue selling products even if the contract expires, with an eye to settling payments once a new contract is agreed to, she said. Nevertheless, a stronger patent portfolio of its own could only help Nokia in its negotiations. In some of its lawsuits against Nokia, Qualcomm has asked the court to pay for Nokia's alleged patent infringement on phones that it has already sold. Nokia's agreement with Trimble marks a new way of thinking at the Finnish handset maker, which now views intellectual property more as an investment, said James. That's a turnaround from the 1980s, when the company didn't believe in the long-term value of patents and advised companies not to apply for them, James said. Today, Nokia contributes 25 percent of the patents that make up the GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) standard and 28 percent of WCDMA patents, James said. It also holds 130 essential patents for CDMA. Despite announcing an exit from the CDMA market, Nokia intends to hold onto those patents as a revenue generator, she said. Nokia also believes that it has around 25 percent of essential patents for WiMax, the emerging broadband wireless standard. Qualcomm recently beganÂ asking WiMax vendors to license patents relevant to WiMax that it acquired when it bought Flarion Technologies Inc. last year. Â  James Niccolai in Paris contributed to this report. Â
691758
Qualcomm Inc.  may change the way it recognizes royalties from its licensees, which would reduce fourth-quarter pre-tax income by &#36;298 million, the company said on Friday.
715165
WASHINGTON (CBS.MW) -- Qualcomm on Friday said it may have to reduce this year&#39;s revenue by $298 million because of the way it accounts for royalty payments.
150924
Wireless chip supplier Qualcomm Inc   said on Wednesday it would be hurt in the short term  by a court injunction on the sale of chips infringing rival  Broadcom Corp's  patents, but it promised to have  alternative products in phones before the end of the quarter.
180374
Qualcomm made a clear statement about its vision for future mobile devices on Monday by buying SoftMax, a provider of noise-reduction algorithms.SoftMax&#39;s technology works with multiple microphones to suppress background noise, separate the speaker&#39;s voice from that noise, and cancel echoes, all to make voice calls more intelligible. The battle for better sound was stepped up recently when Motorola delivered a system called CrystalTalk, with a similar aim, in its Razr2 line of phones.The SoftMax Signal Separation technology broadens Qualcomm&#39;s toolset for devices, including mobile phones, Bluetooth headsets, VoIP phones, and notebooks, according to a company statement. It consumes less battery life, processing power, and memory than alternatives, the company said. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Qualcomm was not immediately able to provide more details of its plans for SoftMax.SoftMax already has deals with mobile operator SK Telecom and with communications chipmaker Broadcom, which is&#160;embroiled in a fierce legal battle with Qualcomm over various patents. Qualcomm may have acquired SoftMax as much for its engineers and intellectual property as for its current products, said analyst Will Strauss of Forward Concepts.Similarly,&#160;Qualcomm acquired wireless broadband vendor Flarion&#160;last year just for its team and OFDMA (orthogonal frequency-division multiplex access) technology, Strauss said. That company&#39;s intellectual property is expected to be valuable as OFDMA technologies including WiMax and&#160;LTE (Long-Term Evolution)&#160;become widely adopted. In addition, it would have been hard to simply recruit top-notch talent in a field as obscure as noise reduction, Strauss said. Qualcomm is probably looking both to integrate SoftMax&#39;s algorithms in its own single-chip systems for devices and to license them to other hardware vendors, Strauss said.Privately held SoftMax is based in Qualcomm&#39;s hometown of San Diego and was founded in 1998 by scientists from The Salk Institute and from the University of California at San Diego, where Qualcomm founder Irwin Jacobs is a former professor and endowed the Jacobs School of Engineering in 1997.
542936
Qualcomm, a maker of chips for cell phones, said Thursday that it plans to integrate Microsoft Windows media technology into many of its chips, a move that&#39;s expected to be a boon for both wireless streaming services and for Microsoft, which has been
451810
I'll see you in court. Oh, you're already there Nokia has filed another lawsuit against Qualcomm in their ever-growing list of patent spats.â¦
576056
Investor's Business Daily - When it comes to making CDMA chips for cell phones, Qualcomm is king. But as a new generation of phones hits the market, the company may struggle to keep its reign.
624072
Wireless technology company Qualcomm Inc.  on Wednesday reported a higher quarterly profit on growing global demand for cellular networks using its technology.
299876
Qualcomm, the San Diego cell phone technology developer, said yesterday it has acquired a British software company for $36 million in cash.
483924
Qualcomm shares fell yesterday after the wireless technology giant said it may change the way it accounts for royalties on its financial statements.
9314
(InfoWorld) - Despite attacks on its business model, including a particularly rancorous battle with Nokia, Qualcomm said its revenue will be higher than expected for its fiscal second quarter. Instead of pro forma revenue of $2 billion to $2.1 billion, Qualcomm expects to report $2.1 billion to $2.2 billion for its second quarter, which ends April 1. The new estimate is based on better-than-expected shipments of Qualcomm's Mobile Station Modem chips as well as CDMA2000 (Code Division Multiple Access) and WCDMA (Wideband CDMA) chips. Despite growing mobile phone penetration in Europe and North America, sales of CDMA2000 and WCDMA were particularly strong in those regions, Qualcomm said. Qualcomm competitor Texas InstrumentsÂ (TI) doesn't expect to have done quite as well in the quarter. On Monday, TI revised its expectations for revenue in the first quarter of this year to be potentially lower. Instead of $3.01 billion to $3.28 billion, TI said revenue will likely fall between $3.07 billion and $3.22 billion. Qualcomm's raised expectations come amid attacks on its business. A group of vendors, including Nokia, filed a complaint with the European Commission in late 2005 charging Qualcomm with anticompetitive behavior. Nokia and others claim that Qualcomm isn't licensing its technology that contributes to certain industry standards on a fair basis, as promised. Qualcomm is also involved in renegotiations with Nokia regarding their contract, which expires April 7. That renegotiation process has been marred by patent infringement lawsuits that Qualcomm has filed against Nokia in France, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Italy, as well as with the International Trade Commission. Qualcomm has also been at battle with chipmaker Broadcom. The two settled some of their patent claims against each other recently but are still arguing over others. Qualcomm expects additional solid growth in the future in part due to a couple of developments. The GSM Association chose an LG Electronics handset that uses a Qualcomm chipset in a contest to supply a low-cost 3G phone to participating operators around the globe. In addition, Verizon WirelessÂ and AT&T have said they'll use Qualcomm's mobile TV platform.