Convincing the holdouts
Of course, the OPA still needs to get phonemakers on its side - given the driving force of Intel behind the initiative, acceptance in the PC world may be simpler than getting Nokia and Qualcomm to sign up, not to mention the CE giants (though Samsung is a founder member and spans all these worlds).
Qualcomm's patent holdings in OFDM-based technologies like Wimax and LTE are unclear as yet, but the company famously stays aloof from patent pools and other common frameworks; the increasingly important Chinese device makers also have their own complex IPR issues and will need to be convinced.
These are challenges for all next generation patent initiatives however, and Hahn is confident that the OPA is, at least, setting the pace, and could extend its reach beyond just Wimax. Referring to recent LTE patent pool activity by Via Licensing, he said "imitation is the best form of flattery" and indicates "the LTE community is thinking patent pools could be the way to go".
A group of LTE vendors got together a year ago to create a common licensing framework for LTE, but others prefer a patent pool administered by a third party, and Via Licensing has stepped up to the plate. Via already manages patent pools for some key standards, such as MPEG2, Wi-Fi and NFC, and signed a deal last December with the IEEE to administer pools for that body's key standards.
It says it now wants to work with the LTE industry to create a licensing program that "balances the needs of licensors and licensees and enables the industry to more effectively develop and deliver products and services based on LTE."
Its experience in pools and its independent stance could give it a better chance than some efforts to bringing the industry together, but of course a pool only works if the largest IPR holders and licensees all support it.
There can only be one pool for each technology, and competing technologies cannot be managed within one pool, but a single umbrella organization can run sub-pools for each platform, and can then benefit by offering good terms, especially to vendors that need to license the same patents in multiple pools.
The drive, then, will be towards an over-arching patent pool for the 4G technologies, and the OPA clearly intends to use its head start in the process to make a firm pitch for this important, if deeply political, role.
Caroline Gabriel is head of research at Rethink Research