Misek notes in a new report that there are three key areas where patents are concentrated: hardware, software and wireless technology.

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As one of the largest providers of wireless chipset and software technology in the industry, Qualcomm has a diverse chipset and software product portfolio spanning multiple device classes.

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But someday soon, I think, thanks to the increasing miniaturization of semiconductor devices, wireless and better software interfaces like speech recognition, our technology is going to start disappearing, embedding into walls and dashboards and sheets of paper.

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The Nasdaq composite index rose to a seven-week high late Wednesday afternoon after promising forecasts in the wireless and software sectors gave investors reason to bet that profits at technology companies will rebound next year.

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Apart from the use of wireless PDAs, the only other new technology will be a piece of software fresh from the IBM labs.

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