After flexing their muscles in the preceding days, Qualcomm and Nokia have been quiet this week as the cross-licensing agreements that both of their wireless businesses depend on expired yesterday.

Nokia technically now has no license rights to Qualcomm’s CDMA patents, and Qualcomm has no rights to Nokia’s. Yet last week, both companies threatened litigation, demanded arbitration and Qualcomm even threatened to deny future access to its crucial CDMA technology outright.

The two obviously want to get their licensing issues settled so they can continue selling their chipsets and phones without an intellectual property cloud hanging over them. The issue under debate, though, is what exactly its licensing fees should be. Nokia claims that about 1% of the cost of the phone goes to Qualcomm now, a percentage Nokia believes should be lower. Meanwhile Qualcomm maintains that percentage should be much higher. It won’t give a specific number, but other agreements it has in place give Qualcomm a whopping 5% of the wholesale cost of a W-CDMA phone.

I’m obviously in no position to argue one side’s case or the other, or determine what the fair royalty rate of either company’s intellectual property might be. But I do think the fight in general has achieved ridiculous proportions. I get the impression the battle between the GSM technologists and Qualcomm has become personal. What started out as resentment to Qualcomm’s—possibly overzealous—enforcement of its patents, seems to have turned into downright hostility. Qualcomm’s reputation, whether deserved or not, for holding the industry hostage over intellectual property seems to be actively affecting the way vendors now innovate. I’ve had vendors tell me that, in the standards bodies, they’re looking for ways to lock Qualcomm out of the process instead of dealing with its demands. And one of the biggest advantages people cite about WiMAX is the fact that it’s not a CDMA technology and therefore not subject to Qualcomm royalties (though with its acquisition of Flarion Technologies, Qualcomm may still have a stake).

The scary scenario is that fear or hatred of Qualcomm will become so intense it will cause vendors to steer clear of the better or most suitable technology if it happens to be partly Qualcomm developed. Perhaps they’d be right to do so—if Qualcomm is that hard to deal with, maybe the future business case can sacrifice innovation. But I can’t imagine such a scenario would be good for the industry in general. CDMA, after all, brought wireless networks light years ahead. I’d hate to think that if Qualcomm came up with another such innovation it would be avoided.

E-mail me at kfitchard@telephonyonline.com.