Sidecut Reports

According to Don Clark of the Wall Street Journal, Monday’s big WiMax announcement is going to be about a “patent pool” spearheaded by Cisco, Intel, Samsung and others, aimed at reducing the amounts developers (especially device developers) might have to pay for WiMax-related patents.

For Clearwire, Sprint and other service providers, having a group with Cisco and Alcatel/Lucent in it can’t hurt, since both those companies can probably bring big patent portfolios to bear. But until the real heavyweights of the wireless world sign up — as Clark notes in his story, neither Qualcomm nor Motorola is part of Monday’s pool party — the patent pool is somewhat on the shallow side.

Why is a patent pool important to WiMax’s development? While the “openness” of the planned Clearwire WiMax network may be attractive to independent device developers, the patent problem could be a bigger deterrent. Sure, it sounds great to think that you could build a device, and as long as it meets WiMax standards, you can sell it at Best Buy and customers could instantly connect to the Clearwire network. Sounds good.

But since that device isn’t subsidized or supported by Clearwire, don’t expect them to help out a lot should Qualcomm or say, Verizon’s lawyers come calling, asking for a piece of your profits should your device suddenly turn successful. Ask Jeff Citron how those battles end up.

Of course, Sprint is not shy when it comes to filing patent lawsuits, so at least the WiMax pool party will have someone around who knows how this game is played.

UPDATE: Cisco and Intel hosted a very disjointed press conference/webcast, with some speakers live in studio, some on the phone and some on webcast. Questions had to be submitted to a moderator, which meant that execs on the conference could dodge questions without complaint. (I asked the panel about what would happen if a non-alliance member sued an alliance member, and whether the alliance would help fight the lawsuit, and got a non-answer answer. Press release on the alliance is here on the Cisco site.)

Need to know more about WiMax? Order our recently updated WiMax report, with full analysis of the “new” Clearwire deal and the motivations for investors Comcast, Google, Intel and others.

Is networking hardware giant Cisco ready to throw its hat a bit deeper into the U.S. WiMax market ring? Looks that way from the press conference invite that just landed in our in-box, inviting us to a webcast on Monday, June 9, that will discuss “a new initiative by industry leaders in mobility to stimulate more innovation and new entrants into the WiMAX ecosystem.” The roster of attendees includes Cisco, Clearwire, Alcatel-Lucent, Intel, Samsung and Sprint.

While Cisco and Alcatel-Lucent already have existing WiMax businesses — Cisco bought gear supplier startup Navini last fall, and AlcaLu is behind some smaller operations in the U.S. — both were significantly absent from any previous association with the old Clearwire, the old Sprint Xohm plan, or the new Clearwire WiMax announcements. Cisco CEO John Chambers has previously said that Navini was purchased with overseas customers in mind, but that may be changing due to the new ambitious plans of the new Clearwire and its deep-pocket investors Google and Comcast. Intel and Samsung are already neck-deep in Clearwire partnering, with Intel supplying $1.62 billion in investment cash and Samsung building network infrastructure along the East Coast.

Our best guess is that this new group is forming to do some sort of clearinghouse or testing/certification for Mobile WiMax back-end gear and devices, the kind of activity that is necessary to “stimulate innovation and new entrants” by making it easier to assure customers that it will all work together. More as we learn more!