InterDigital Seen as a Defensive Weapon Against Google Patent Juggernaut
By Scott M. Fulton, III / August 18, 2011 1:44 PM
"Our technology is used in every mobile phone," reads a leaderboard-style ad on the home page of InterDigital, a wireless technology company that holds some 8,800 critical patents. An independent assessment last April of the relative value of communications companies' patent portfolios by equity market analysis firm Ocean Tomo LLC rated the key 4G and 3G patents held by InterDigital (of which there are about 20) as about 4% more valuable, and 6% more relevant to significant communications platforms, than Nortel's 20 key patents.
...Licensing is the key revenue stream for the telecommunications industry, and the only way for a company to move that stream in its own direction is to be owed more in license fees than it owes others. Ocean Tomo believes the InterDigital portfolio to be about 17% more valuable, and 15% more relevant, than the MMI portfolio that Google may acquire in its $12.5 billion bid. If that's accurate, and the Google/MMI deal is consummated, then conceivably Google may end up owing more to Apple or Qualcomm than it would be owed - making its entire entry into the manufacturing business something of a wash.
http://www.readwriteweb.com/enterprise/2011/08/interdigital-seen-as-a-defensi.php
"The world is a dangerous place to live�not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it." �Albert Einstein
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