Qualcomm, Broadcom Settle.

Qualcomm will pay Broadcom $891m over four years. Last summer Qualcomm settled its multiple lawsuits with Nokia in a deal under which Nokia agreed to pay Qualcomm $2.5bn.

There were signs of a change of mind-set in San Diego earlier this year when, at a conference in the city, Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs commented that, because of the Nokia and Broadcom lawsuits: "You think this is a litigious company, but we did not go out and sue everyone first... Our (business) model is built around licensing. We have one of the broadest models. We don't sell cell phones to end users. We work with partners. We consciously developed this strategy of working through partners and we go to our partners and say we're here to be a good partner with you."

In March this year, Michael Mamaghani, director of marketing at Qualcomm, told me: "The world has become more sophisticated in its discussions of 3G licensing. The IP licensing business has become mature. There are very few disagreements among the major companies on licensing".

Another sign that Qualcomm will be in the tent peeing out, rather than outside the tent peeing in, when the settlement of IP issues is addressed at the 4G generation, is that Qualcomm is a sponsor of the Next Generation Mobile Network, an alliance of operators aimed at making IP licensing transparent and quantifiable, which has a number of manufacturers on board known as 'sponsors'. The operators are known as 'members'.

In an industry as interdependent as the world wireless industry it is probably a hindrance to doing business if you are seen as institutionally litigious.