RE:There's something wrong here!
Yes there is something wrong here. As I pointed out in a recent post WiLAN is not signing renewals and new licensing agreements at a pace sufficient to replace exisitng revenues and to grow future revenues and earnings.
Shareholders only get a glimpse of what is happening behind the scenes with their company four times a year...on the quarterly conference calls. J$ gives good sound bites on these calls but rarely imo seems to deliver. This is the key theme over the past few years. Investors have been consistently dissapointed with respect to rhetoric versus reality, whether it is the Apple cases or the big partnership deals that are announced with such fanfare.
Here is an exchange between an analyst and J$ on the Q2 2014 conference call held in July regarding the Apple case on the two Stanwood LTE patents. He exuded such confidence about WiLAN's case. Investors anxiousluy awaited the November trial date anticipating a settlement with Apple at long last. Not to be. Just two months after the cc, the judge threw the case out saying Apple didn't infringe either patent.
How could J$ be so wrong? What are investors to think?
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Daniel Kim
Paradigm Capital, Inc., Research Division
That is helpful. My second question would be related to the Apple situation. I guess first off, wondering what the next steps would be on the 802 patents now that the patents are valid. And secondly, as it relates to Apple again, I believe you're coming up to trial end of this year with related -- relating to the LTE patents. Will there be any type of merging of these 2 separate matters? Or how do you think this will play out for the balance of the year?
James Douglas Skippen
Chief Executive Officer, President, Chief Legal Officer and Executive Director
Well, of course, our objective is always to sign a license, so we're always actively working towards that end, whether up front or in the background. But you can count on us trying to do that if it's possible. If it's not possible, that will be disappointing, but we will end up in litigation in November on several patents. These are patents that were developed by Ken Stanwood's team. Ken Stanwood is a full-time employee of ours and is a subsidiary of ours [indiscernible]. And we have a very strong case. We think they're very fundamental patents. We just had a very positive ruling, verifying the Markman, which we think really assists in the case. And we'll go to trial in November if there's not a resolution, which, of course, is our first choice.
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And here is another exchange on the same call. J$ sure was seeing alot of activity back in July. But where are the deals on the British Telecom patent partnership we signed two years ago and the partnership with Panasonic we signed over a year ago?
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Eyal Ofir
Clarus Securities Inc., Research Division
Okay. But, I mean, just a general question. Obviously, a lot of moving pieces in your business and you're -- you have a lot more partnerships in hand. Can you just think, like, over the next 12 months? Where do you think in terms of the partnerships where the most growth can help drive your revenue profile? And then just in terms of the ongoing discussions you guys are having in terms of licensing, what are you seeing there and kind of what's your thought process in terms of licensing just the general patent portfolio. And I'll pass the line off after that.
James Douglas Skippen
Chief Executive Officer, President, Chief Legal Officer and Executive Director
Well, it's always difficult to predict in the short term where growth comes from. It could come from many places I predicted. It'll probably work out slightly differently than I predict. I definitely think we're going to continue to see growth on our legacy programs, like our wireless and TV programs, but I also think that some of the very -- the bright spots in the horizon where we're seeing a fair bit of licensing activity and offers are in areas -- offers from prospective licensees are in areas like our British Telecom portfolio that applies to basically digital rights management, video and other content that's streamed over the Internet.They -- we're seeing a lot of life on our portfolio that relates to nonstandard devices like point-of-sale terminals offers on that portfolio. So we think we'll see activity there. Now I'm hopeful that on some of the Panasonic patents, the CMOS imaging sense -- CMOS image sensing patents, we're going to see some licenses. It's possible on the flash portfolio, the big flash portfolio, we may see some licenses. And so it's -- there's lots of stuff -- lots of areas where there could be licenses. Now with 30 active programs and we've got a lot of teams actively licensing. And when I track sort of where we're at on them, we have lots of interest in taking licenses. Just -- it's just the price that's an issue. I think we're going to see lots of growth in a lot of areas. So hopefully, that helps without being too granular about it.