Dilemma or opportunity for wimax orgnization?IPR is an urgent issue that needs to address in wimax orgnization, in my view.
Qualcomm tried to reshape wimax standards to protect its cdma business. It tried once but failed to derail 802.16e standard. Now it signed IP agreetment with Soma regarding its purchased OFDM/OFDMA from Flarion. It clearly shows that qualcomm is launching another attack on the wimax industry. If it succeeds, the results may be:
1. higher price for any equipment using wimax standard, since qualcomm may charge high royalty fee for its ip, if relevant.
2. Qualcomm amy control the rate of royalty if it wins the first litigation agianst any wimax forum member. As we know qualcomm does not hold any core wimax patent (wi-lan does), the best may be something on the top of wi-lan's seminal patents (w-ofdm and Mac layers).
But if this does happens, wi-lan may be forced to charge higher rate for its fundamental patents used in wimax than it originally intends to.
3. More confusions and uncertainties may occur and cause the delay of the world-wide wimax deployment.
4. the failure of wimax's leadership (intel, is it one to be blamed for ignoring wi-lan's IP? It can initiate a fair royalty payment policy but failed to do so in my view. Any meaningful IP agreetment within wimax forum needs to get ok from the core patents holder, wi-lan.)
In my view, both Qualcomm and wi-lan have already take their positions for the wimax ip issue. What about the wimax forum orgnization? Continues to ignore the IP issue? Time is runing out to solve the issue via negotiations within wimax forum.
It's interesting to see who is going to be the first to make next move on the IP issue. Qualcomm, wi-lan or wimax forum orgnization? But one thing seems to be certain: who first make the next move will result in a quite differnt consequence.
Good luck