Qualcomm May Change Royalty Recognition
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Qualcomm Inc. QCOM.O may change the  way it recognizes royalties from its licensees, which would  reduce fourth-quarter pre-tax income by $298 million, the  company said on Friday.
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Nokia , the world's biggest mobile phone maker, said on Tuesday the ongoing patent battle with Qualcomm Inc.  may work against the uptake of "third-generation" mobile technology.
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Trade group says chipset tech in some phones runs afoul of patents at the center of Qualcomm's battle with Broadcom.
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(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
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"This is another example where Qualcomm has effectively copied Nokia's innovations."  Nokia Corp., the world's largest mobile phone maker, said Monday it filed a patent infringement countersuit against Qualcomm in an ongoing multinational legal battle over wireless technology.Nokia, which filed the lawsuit in a Texas district court, is seeking damages and injunctive relief. The lawsuit deals with claims of unauthorized use of Nokia's Brew and MediaFlo patents, which allow fast, high-quality transfers of audio and video multimedia to wireless subscribers.In April, Qualcomm Inc., the world's No. 2 chipmaker for mobile phones which licenses its technology patents, filed a patent infringement lawsuit in Texas against Nokia, allegedly involving certain types of mobile software download and execution environments. Read more
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And Motorola deal Comment On a financial analyst tour in the UK last week, Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs lamented that, on a day when the chipmaker made a string of major announcements, the commentators were only interested in asking about the licensing disputes with Nokia.â¦
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Qualcomm Inc.  shares jumped more than 4 percent on Tuesday after China said it may grant a license for a next-generation cellphone network that would boost royalties to the wireless technology and chip supplier.
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By Jennifer Davies, The San Diego Union-Tribune  Dec. 12--In the latest round of an ongoing legal battle between the  wireless chip makers, the U.S. International Trade Commission ruled yesterday  that Qualcomm is infringing on a patent held by rival Broadcom.
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Wireless giant Qualcomm (Quote, Chart) has inked a licensing deal with Microsoft (Quote, Chart) it claims will make it easier to play audio and video on its handsets.
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Political pawn or technology asset? This week Qualcomm announced two acquisitions in the non-cellular wireless arena, at least one of them bringing it significant intellectual property rights in WLans.â¦
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LOS ANGELES   Qualcomm has dropped an $18 million claim for monetary damages from rival Texas Instruments for publicly discussing terms of a licensing pact, a TI spokeswoman confirmed Tuesday.
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The world's top cellphone maker Nokia   said on Tuesday the U.S. International Trade  Commission has decided to start investigating Qualcomm Inc's   trade practices and alleged patent infringement.
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(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.
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U.S. wireless technology firm and  chip supplier Qualcomm Inc.  is talking to potential  Chinese partners to prepare for the launch of third-generation  services, but its chief executive questioned on Tuesday the  market prospects for a homegrown standard Beijing is pushing.
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Nokia and Qualcomm have entered a new round in their high-stakes fight over patent royalties.
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The International Trade Commission will investigate whether Qualcomm is following a court order in a patent suit.
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The hit on Qualcomm from a patent suit it lost to rival Broadcom may be slashed because of an unrelated ruling that came down in August.