Qualcomm acquires a portfolio of mobile patents from Hewlett-Packard

Qualcomm Inc. announced that it purchased a portfolio of patents form Hewlett-Packard Co., and by doing this it acquired intellectual property, which includes the mobile operating systems fundamentals.

The company also explained that the patents include the ones related to Palm, as well as to iPaq mobile devices of Hewlett-Packard. The technology of Bitfone Corp., which was bought by Hewlett-Packard in 2007, is also included in the portfolio. Michael Thacker, who is a spokesman of Hewlett-Packard said that the company will maintain a license to the patents sold.

The company made a statement, revealing that the portfolio it bought consists of about 1,200 granted patents and pending applications in the U.S., plus about 1,000 patents, which are granted and being applied for in other countries. The price of the deal between Qualcomm Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co. was not disclosed.

Qualcomm, which is currently considered the worlds largest mobile-phone chips manufacturer, gets the main part of its profit from technology licensing, announced that the newly-acquired patents are to be used to “offer even more value to current and future licensees.” Royalties are being charged by the company to handset makers and rival semiconductor companies for the use of its code division multiple access (CDMA), which has turned to an important part of most high-speed mobile data systems.

For a while, Hewlett-Packard was reported to seek buyers for some of its mobile-computing patents, because its Chief Executive Officer Meg Whitman was trying to stabilize the financial position of the company. The patents in question included the ones related to WebOS, which is the smartphone and tablet-computer operating system that was bought by Hewlett-Packard in 2010.

Erin-Michael Gill, who is the Managing Director of MDB Capital Group, which is an intellectual property-focused investment bank, explained that the value of the Qualcomms newly-acquired patents is expected to be determined by how much theyve already been used in cross-licensing agreements by Hewlett-Packard. Gill said: “Now theyre in the hands of someone that might be more effective in monetizing these assets. Hewlett-Packard may still be able to participate in the upside of the monetization efforts of Qualcomm.”

According to CNN Money, the current share price of Qualcomm Inc. is 0.12% up, and its one-year return rate is 2.18% up. The 37 analysts offering 12-month price forecasts for Qualcomm Inc. have a median target of 80.00, with a high estimate of 88.00 and a low estimate of 50.00. The median estimate represents a +5.44% increase from the last price of 75.87.