  When the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) selected a
radio access technology based on Wideband Code-Division Multiple Access
(WCDMA), sponsored by European telecommunications equipment manufactures
Ericsson and Nokia, for its third-generation wireless communications system, a
bitter dispute developed between ETSI and Qualcommm Inc. Qualcomm threatened to
withhold its intellectual property on the CDMA technology unless the Europeans
agreed to make the radio access technology backward compatible with cdmaOne,
Qualcomm's favored version of CDMA. A dispute over intellectual property rights
over key CDMA techniques also erupted between Ericsson and Qualcomm and both
filed patent infringement in US Court. The dispute halted the standards
activity and has troubled operators worldwide as well as the International
Telecommunications Union (ITU).
