Nortel stakes IPR claims to LTE: Campfire sing-along over LTE patents appears unlikely

Nortel Networks Corp. said today that it would charge “about” a 1% royalty rate* to handset vendors licensing Nortel’s Long Term Evolution patents.
(Yes, that asterisk is intentional. See below or Nortel’s statement.)
The infrastructure vendor said its motive was “to provide increased transparency and predictability” for LTE patent costs and “reduce the risks of early deployment” by handset vendors.
Further, Nortel said that publishing its royalty position today would “help simplify the current guesswork, while ensuring that its innovation is rewarded.”
In declaring its devotion to rewards for innovation, Nortel appeared to be staking out a position closer to Qualcomm Inc. – a go-it-alone approach – than a recent announcement by a group of patent holders that they would work together in some manner.
“Nortel believes that pioneers and innovators should be entitled to a reasonable return on their investment in R&D and leading contributions to the next-generation standard, where not all patents are created equal,” said John Hoadley, VP of 4G ecosystem and development at Nortel, in a prepared statement.
Nortel included a brief history of what the company characterized as its pioneering and innovative work in the LTE patent arena.
Here’s Nortel’s footnote on “about” 1% royalties:
“Nortel will license its LTE standards essential patent claims for LTE handsets at a royalty rate of about 1% on the sale price, subject to specific terms to reciprocity, defensive suspension, and grantback to Nortel products, services and solutions, as well as other customary license terms and conditions.”
Apparently, in patent-licensing positioning, nothing is simple and even the qualifiers have qualifiers. To say “the devil’s in the details” would be an appropriate use of clich