Samsung Is Said to Examine InterDigital Patents
Samsung Electronics Co., the world's second-largest maker of mobile phones, is examining InterDigital Inc.'s patent portfolio after being approached to make a bid, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Context & Ripple Effects
InterDigital's patent portfolio has become an auction: on July 20, Bloomberg reported that Apple and Google were among the companies sizing up offers, and today's report adds Samsung, which says it was approached and is now examining the assets. The suitors' list reads like a map of the smartphone patent fights already underway.
For Samsung specifically, the timing is pointed. Its flagship Galaxy S2 was confirmed for a U.S. launch next month directly against Apple's forthcoming iPhone, and coverage in late June speculated that the two long-time partners, also collaborators on displays, could be heading for what one headline called an ugly divorce amid their ITC dispute. A portfolio like InterDigital's would be both shield and sword in that fight.
First-order effects
- Samsung joins Apple and Google as an examined suitor for InterDigital's patents, turning a single-company evaluation into a multi-bidder process that hands InterDigital's board real negotiating leverage over price and structure.
Second-order effects
- Competing bids from the three largest smartphone players inflate the clearing price of any wireless portfolio put up for sale, raising acquisition costs across the industry and strengthening the hand of every patent-holding licensor negotiating with device makers.
Third-order effects
- If handset leaders keep concluding that licensing others' standards-essential patents leaves them exposed, ownership of core wireless IP becomes a structural requirement for staying competitive — consolidating essential patents into the hands of the few companies large enough to buy them.
The trend: The smartphone patent war is pushing device makers from licensing intellectual property toward outright acquisition of portfolios as competitive weapons.