NEW YORK—Investment bank UBS joined the latest wireless parlor game: Will Nokia Corp. or Qualcomm Inc. get the upper hand in the two companies’ intellectual property rights licensing negotiations?
UBS analyst Maynard Um wrote in a report on Nokia that the Finnish handset behemoth’s IPR position within the industry is “strong and getting stronger” due to significant IPR in GSM and W-CDMA. Further, Um wrote, Nokia’s position vis-à-vis Qualcomm “appears to have improved materially” from the time the current agreement with the chip maker was first signed in 1992 (and extended in 2001). Also, Nokia’s joint venture with Sanyo Corp. to produce CDMA handsets would no longer require Nokia to license IP for CDMA2000.
Those factors should lead Nokia to lower royalty payments to Qualcomm going forward, while receiving higher royalties from other device manufacturers, according to UBS.
A Qualcomm spokesperson declined to comment on the UBS report.
