In the wake of the White House having reversed this weekend an import ban on Apple‘s (AAPL) sales of some models of iPhone and iPad, a ban imposed after Apple was found to have infringed on a patent held by Samsung Electronics (005930KS), Bernstein Research chip analyst Stacy Rasgon today reflects on what impact, if any, the overturning of theInternational Trade Commission‘s ban might have on the intellectual property of wireless chip maker Qualcomm (QCOM).

Rasgon’s note follows a sharp sell-off yesterday in shares of patent holder InterDigitalCommunications (IDCC), whose stock dropped 10% after one analyst, William Blair’s Anil Doradla, wrote that the ban reversal could affect actions that the company has been in the process of enforcing against Nokia (NOK) and others at the ITC.

Rasgon, who has an Outperform rating on Qualcomm stock, and an $80 price target, writes that he has been getting many questions from investors about whether Qualcomm’s ability to assert its patents might be affected. He concludes, “though we are certainly not IP lawyers we believe that there should be relatively little to no risk to the company.”

For one thing, Qualcomm has never pursued such a ban:

The veto could suggest it may be more difficult to seek importation bans from the US ITC based on enforcement of Standards-Essential patent violationsin the future. However, QCOM has not, to our knowledge, ever sought a ban of this type. Moreover, licensors who believe they are being infringed are not prohibited from seeking monetary redress through the courts, even in a case where a ban is not granted [...] While the threat of such an action in response to a hypothetical violation of their SEP IP has always been there, QCOM has never to our knowledge sought to get a product importation ban based on their SEPs imposed (e.g. they have never tried to use this weapon, though the threat of it has undoubtedly been there) [...] Additionally, parties denied a ban are not prohibited from seeking redress through the courts. Indeed, Mr. Froman’s finding suggests that Samsung do exactly that (saying “My decision to disapprove this determination does not mean that the patent owner in this case is not entitled to a remedy. On the contrary, the patent owner may continue to pursue its rights through the courts.”). Thus QCOM, should they ever find themselves in such a situation, could sue to achieve monetary redress (which has always been their preferred strategy).

Moreover, Qualcomm has already licensed its patents broadly to numerous parties, points out Rasgon, suggesting there is less reason for them to have to pursue litigation:

Qualcomm has already licensed both their standards-essential and non-essential 3G portfolio to all knowncellular device manufacturers (indeed, we note that the AAPL products in question are those that do NOT incorporate aQCOM baseband, and the disagreement between AAPL and Samsung stems in part from the fact that the two companies do not have a license agreement in place to cover the patentsunder dispute). Given essentially all of QCOM’s royalty revenue today is obtainedthrough their 3G licenses, we see zero intermediate-term impact from this finding.

And any threat of a watering-down of patents‘ value seems a minimal threat:

Over the long term, the one potential risk could be if the value of signing new standards-essential patents were to be diluted as a result of this finding(and indeed, the “Innovation Alliance,” of which QCOM is a member, howled loudly after the veto was announced). For QCOM, we believe this would be a question of only new agreements signed under their 4G-only portfolio (given existing agreements, whether 3G or 4G, would notbe affected). We note, for example, that QCOM has indicated a likely 3.25% base rate on their 4G OFDMA-based Standards-Essential portfolio (we believe licensing their non-essential patents in addition should provide upside to this number). But, if the intrinsic value of Standards-Essential IP were to be lessened by the finding, it is possible that in the very long term (at such a point in time when the majority of devices were 4G-only) the value of QCOM’s 4G portfoliofor new licensees could, in theory, be diluted. That being said, QCOM has already obtained90 OFDM 4G licensees,including many of the large handset OEMs such as Samsung, BlackBerry, Nokia, LT, Pantech, Sony, Ericsson, TCL, and ZTE (Exhibit 1). Thus, we believe QCOM has already signed much of the market to 4G agreements. And, we see the prospect of 4G-only devices as the majority within any conceivable investment horizon as extremely low.