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Qualcomm Incorporated today announced plans to modify its corporate structure, in an effort to protect its valuable 3G and 4G IP.

The company sais the corporate structure changes would enhance Qualcomm's ability to quickly deliver products to its customers, while further protecting and insulating its patent portfolio from any claims resulting from actions and activities by portions of the company other than the Qualcomm Technology Licensing Division (QTL). Qualcomm clarified that this restructuring is not part of spinning out either the QTL or QCT business.

The new corporate structure will feature the parent company, Qualcomm Incorporated, which includes QTL and corporate functions, as well as most of Qualcomm's patent portfolio; and a new wholly owned subsidiary, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. (QTI), which, along with its subsidiaries, will operate substantially all of Qualcomm's research and development activities, as well as product and services businesses, including its semiconductor business, QCT.

The company expects that QTI and its subsidiaries' product and services businesses will increase their work with open source software in the future and this restructuring will, among other things, help ensure that QTI and its subsidiaries' activities do not result in the licensing of any of Qualcomm Incorporated's patents, including its 3G and 4G patents.

Under the new structure, QTI and its subsidiaries will own patents specifically developed for purposes of providing open source software contributions by QTI and its subsidiaries, whereas substantially all of the remainder of the company's patent portfolio will continue to be owned by Qualcomm Incorporated. QTI and its subsidiaries will have no rights to grant licenses or other rights to patents held by Qualcomm Incorporated. There will be no changes to the intellectual property that is currently owned by Qualcomm Innovation Center, Inc., which works closely with the open source community to accelerate the advancement of the wireless industry as a whole.

"Our internal reorganization will provide even greater protection for our industry-leading intellectual property portfolio as our products and services businesses seek to accelerate innovation and deliver our products to market quickly," said Dr. Paul E. Jacobs, chairman and CEO. "We are confident that this change to our corporate structure will be accomplished with little to no disruption to employees and customers. As always, Qualcomm remains committed to being a company that creates, develops, sells and licenses state of the art technology through its products and services businesses, as well as its licensing business."

Qualcomm anticipates that the new corporate structure will become effective during the first fiscal quarter of 2013.