Considering the Supreme Court ruling today, and the fact that very FEW chip makers have signed to date, the ruling could spark a rush by infringing chip makers to sign. If the Quanta/LG ruling does in fact rule out down stream licenses, then the stakes for the original infringers may have just gone WAY up. Especially if the USPTO validates the 148 & the 336 soon.

Considering Intel paid $20M, AMD $3.05M & Fujitsu $31M, presumably with the understanding that PTSC/TPL would go after down stream licensing, and thus was willing to provide a discounted license fee, if those downstream fees are no longer available, then it stands to reason that the upstream fees just went UP! Furthermore, it also stands to reason that the maker of the chip that infringes, but then sells the chip to a company that then incorporates that chip, is now even more so subject to injunctive action to stop it from infringing, and thus all of its customers would be affected by any such successful injunction.

Without knowing how these license deals are structured and how today's ruling really affects the MMP licenses, it could well turn out to add significant leverage to TPL/PTSC in negotiating with chip makers. Giving them incentive to sign before a USPTO ruling might help grease the wheel, but certainly a USPTO validation of the 148 & 336 would almost certainly create a very strong position for TPL/PTSC to escalate fees even if against a smaller pool of license candidates. If this list that represents the top 25 chip makers also represents the top 25 INFRINGING chip makers, then there is still quite a bit of license fee to collect, and now the royalty structure, even if applied as a one time fee, can more easily be monetized based on unit production (at least more easily so than those who were classified as system licenses where they were combining infringing tech with other tech).

http://images.dailytech.com/nimage/3...

If TPL/PTSC have been true to their word regarding early mover discounts, then less than 30% of those have been signed so far, and with today's ruling, the SC may have just given TPL/PTSC the hammer they needed to support much larger license fees, and the leverage to file suit to enforce infringement violoators to sign or be subject to injunctive action to prevent them from selling/making their infringing product. That kind of "supply line disruption" that TPL has included in many PR's may have just taken a large step toward becoming a reality. Time will tell, but especially if the USPTO does validate, then things may have just gotten VERY INTERESTING.