I agree with you 100% that ADC would want value from their IP, rightly so. My point is simply that ADC may be “signaling” their intent so as not to repeat the mistakes of Qualcomm. This isn’t unprecedented in past markets as competing standards emerged, we saw similiar types of signaling in the betamax/vhs wars, and the blu-ray/hddvd wars as these markets evolved from their previous market state. What may be different in the Qualcomm case was the emergence of the wireless telecom market, and not its’ evolution. This parallels the previous examples of signaling.

Best,

Curtis

It’s difficult for me to believe a company would make a public statement about their ‘key’ patents in order to ‘expedite market adoption.’ Certainly they’re hoping to get something for their patents.

Generally, I’d say that if the WiMax or LTE industries don’t figure out an overall patent licensing scheme ahead of time that eliminates most or all of the licensing risk by including the key IP holders, they’re going to find the going slower and more difficult than they hoped. No one on the operator side wants to make another Qualcomm mistake by licensing a technology that locks them into an ever increasing and onerous licensing revenue stream with the added downside and lack of scale from of a sole-source provider.

Qualcomm, while having been extremely successful, in my opinion actually ultimately limited their extraction of value from the wireless marketplace by licensing CDMA on terms far too onerous. Proof is that their technology lost in the end and some operators (Telstra) are biting the bullet and completely ripping out their CDMA networks and switching to 3 or 4G GSM based technologies. Those with any sense that haven’t yet done so are choosing the point at which they jump out of the Qualcomm straight-jacket.

I think the points that you raise are valid, however I don’t think there is market resistance due to patent concerns. I think most industry players would agree that the US needs to move forward with Wimax and LTE, as such ADC may be simply trying to expedite market adoption. I’d add that the carriers, chip vendors, and laptop manufacturers are all facing market maturity, so I would therefore expect the spirit of cooperation to be high.

Best,

Curtis