I agree when we and when the company analyzes the success of their licensing program they would analyze based upon the effective rate as a performance guage. I guess where I have difficulty is in accepting that a licensee, who had an actual fixed rate agreed upon and at time for renewal wants to start pointing to anothers fixed agreeement and say I want THEIR effective rate and not the actual rate which they initially agreed upon and very likely (as Merritt confirmed) that the rates in a RIMM and LG are essentially the same. If they want the one-offs as noted, they should be provided as options unless you are saying that is bad practice.
So from a licensee's perspective, I just think the argument is moot to argue for anothers effective rate because again, unless two different licensees sold the exact same units (denominator) and paid the exact same amount (numerator) EVERY effective rate will be different in a fixed agreeement. Therefore it's hard for me to understand that someone can argue "non-discriminatory" on a fixed rate contract because again, they all will be different rates when you look, at the end of the day [drink], at the effective rate. It wasn't discriminatroy at the time of signing because they got the same baseline rate as everyone else. I mean, how would an LG choose which effective rate to use, the lowest effective rate in the patent program? the thrid lowest? ... That's the benefit you get out of a fixed contract for a licensee, sometimes you knock it out of the park, other times you whiff at a ball in the dirt for strike three.
So we (as analysts assessing performance) can care about the effective rate but it's absurd to me that a licensee like LG can point to an Apple agreement and say I want this effective rate, but why not Samsungs? It can be used as leverage in negotiations but in reality should be so absurd to even propose.
Given LG's action for arbitration. Given Huawei actions to get the EU to agree to a rate ... these guys acknowledge they owe us money but the question is how much and the probability is we are probably talking about tenths of a percent difference.
I agree, Good luck to us longs and God Bless.
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