I'm really interested in the "does it limit innovation" question. Is this a case where Qualcomm is really innovating and coming up with novel ideas, or are they

I'm really interested in the "does it limit innovation" question. Is this a case where Qualcomm is really innovating and coming up with novel ideas, or are they just some of the first people to encounter particular problems and are simply solving them in fairly obvious ways that would occur to anyone else who encountered those problems? And if it's the latter, is it that they are doing those investigations because of the potential for patents? Would the pace of innovation be slower if those incentives didn't exist, or would they be faster because everybody else independently figuring those things out later wouldn't need to pay Qualcomm for decades? Is there some sort form of technology economy scholarship that could answer those questions? If I had to guess, I'd guess that Qualcomm's patents over stuff like Wi-Fi and CDMA were probably more harmful than beneficial, but I'd love to know how one would analyze that.