News

Who are we? Who should we pay these patent royalties on mobile to?

Gossip, and innuendo, I am assured, is all there is to this suggestion that an unknown Chinese comms giant is about to overturn Western ideas of intellectual property. Unknown, in the sense that the corporation keeps asking "Who are we?"

Specifically, Who Are We executives are reported as deeply unhappy about the amount which Western IP owners (not just Qualcomm, this time) are asking in royalties for their patents. Apparently, they're having to spend 25% of the sale price on IP payments.

They don't like this idea.

The subject came up while I was interviewing Jim Morrison, founder of iMate - a Middle-east based phone designer, which seems to have fully recovered from its split with HTC - and asked what he saw as future trends.

"Indubitably, IP will enter a crisis in America this year," said Morrison. "It's not a manageable system. If you want intellectual property rights to a design, then build me one, make it work, prove you know how to do it. Don't just say you've thought of it."

That, he reckons, does not mean I should take seriously the idea that Who Are We is going to help tip IP into the tip. "What have you heard?" he asked cautiously.

Scurrilously, I shared the 25% scandal with him. He says he knows nothing about it, nor about rumours that Who Are We might take unilateral action to change this industry structure.

But another industry analyst thinks it's inevitable. We can't (she said) sensibly predict that Chinese corporations will play this game. "I asked one of those people whether this meant that they would simply stop paying royalties? - and he said it wasn't his decision."

Whose, then?