Qualcomm Inc. has purchased Hewlett-Packard Co.'s patent portfolio including roughly 2,400 granted and pending patents in different countries.
The strategic move is aimed to boost global semiconductor company offerings to its clients including handset manufacturers.
According to a Reuters report, the collection of patents of HP's iPaq smartphone and Palm Inc. covers mobile operating system technologies and techniques. It includes more or less 1,400 granted and pending patent applications in the U.S. and approximately 1,000 granted and pending patent applications in China, South Korea, Japan, Germany, England, and other countries.
The portfolio also includes patents the HP acquired when it purchased Bitfone in 2006 and the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based handset manufacturer Palm Inc in 2010.
In 2013, though HP tablets running on Palm's webOS failed to flourish, the company was able to sell it to South Korea's LG Electronics Inc.
iPaq smartphone, which is usually referred to as Pocket PC and personal digital assistant was originally launched by Compaq. It was later acquired and marketed by HP.
"There's nothing left at Palm that HP could get any use out of so it's better to sell the patents, which are always valuable to Qualcomm. They have to keep that bucket full," said Charter Equity Research analyst Ed Snyder to Reuters.
A spokeswoman for Qualcomm said that the new patents it acquired will not affect royalty rates for existing Qualcomm licensees.
Chipmaker Qualcomm declined to disclose the amout paid to HP for the acquisition.
Most of Qualcomm's annual revenue comes from licensing patents for its pervasive code division multiple access (CDMA) cell phone technology and other telecommunications products and services. Rather than licensing patents one by one, handset manufacturers, network carriers, and other licensees pay royalties to Qualcomm to gain access to a broad portfolio of intellectual property.
