FIRST BREAKING NEWS
MicroVision (MVIS) Stock: Jumps 1,000% on Acquisition by Microsoft Speculations
SECOND BREAKING NEWS
Microsoft Needs to Immediately Issue a Correction About MicroVision (MVIS) IP and Hololens 2
Here’s why [as posted on Reddit by u/view-from-afar]…
During today's Microsoft Hololens 2 Webinar broadcast [on May 12] from Florida, Microsoft's Alison Fehling made a statement that is almost certainly false. As the statement is clearly material and detrimental to the valuation and share price of another publicly traded company, it requires an immediate public correction.
The public company in question, Microvision, Inc. (MVIS), is currently facing the imminent risk of delisting from the Nasdaq Global market due to its share price being just shy of the required $1 mark. Consequently, the damage to Microvision and its shareholders resulting from this false statement is real, immediate, non-speculative and grave. If delisted, the company and its shareholders will suffer irreparable harm.
The Microsoft statement in issue is not Ms. Fehling's ambiguous and equivocal response to a barrage of questions posed by the audience regarding the rumored acquisition of Microvision by Microsoft.
Alison Fehling: "Who owns the IP for Hololens 2? That is us."
Rather, the statement in issue was an explicit and unequivocal answer to another question asked in the same context. The question asked about the ownership of the IP (Intellectual property) used in Hololens 2. Ms. Fehling in response stated unequivocally that the IP belonged to Microsoft.
This is almost certainly false. While Microsoft undoubtedly owns much of the IP in Hololens 2, it does not own all of it. As it relates to the Hololens 2 display, it is an open secret that much of the IP in the MEMS laser beam scanning (LBS) display used in Hololens 2 is owned by Microvision.
While Microvision is prevented by non-disclosure agreements from publicly stating that its IP is in Hololens 2, this fact has been demonstrated by an independent public research project conducted by members of a reddit forum (reddit.com/r/MVIS/) created by a small number of retail Microvision shareholders.
A refreshed version of the research project can be viewed here.
This research group has demonstrated that Microvision's reference to its "April 2017" customer is a reference to Microsoft, and that the technology developed by Microvision for that customer forms an integral part of the revolutionary Hololens 2 display, described as a "miracle" by Microsoft's lead on the project, Alex Kipman.
While Microvision is not currently allowed to disclose that its proprietary technology is in Hololens 2, it has nonetheless made plain, including as recently as May 7, 2020 in its Q1 2020 shareholder conference call, that it still owns the IP and that it has not been "sold". Microvision currently receives a per unit royalty from the April 2017 customer for this technology, implying a license but not a sale.
While it would therefore be accurate for Microsoft or its agent, Ms. Fehling, to state that Microsoft has rights or access to the technology, it is false to assert that Microsoft owns all the IP in Hololens 2. It does not.
Microvision is a 20 year old 'start-up' that has created a revolutionary technology that was until recently well ahead of its time. The technology has application in numerous broad and burgeoning fields including mixed and augmented reality, VR, artificial intelligence, 3 dimensional sensing, lidar, microprojection, autonomous vehicles, ADAS and many others. Most of the company's long existence has been spent perfecting and maturing the technology to the point where it can be commercialized. That point has finally arrived. Very recently, Microvision's new CEO, Sumit Sharma, described the technology has having reached an "inflection point" where it can now be used to solve many of the "hardest problems" confronting the technology industry.
However, the path to this inflection point has been long and arduous, especially for Microvision's committed and overwhelming retail shareholders. In excess of $600 million dollars has been expended by this to date unprofitable enterprise and its now threadbare shareholders in order to bring the technology into existence. Consequently the company, while the owner of a revolutionary patented technology finally ready to serve the world's needs, finds itself low on resources to continue and facing delisting.
Broadsided by the Covid-19 pandemic, the company has announced it is up for sale, which has spawned rumors of interest by Microsoft and the other tech giants. In this context, the detrimental impact on Microvision and its share price that can be caused by false statements made by Microsoft or others cannot be overstated.
Consequently, today's statement by Microsoft's Alison Fehling that Microsoft owns all the IP in Hololens 2, and implicitly that Microvision owns none, must be publicly corrected immediately.
EDIT. Another extract from the webinar is revealing:
Alison Fehling: Does the Hololens use the PicoP laser system? ...don't know what [inaudible]... Eric, have you heard of that?
Male voice: Yeah, I [inaudible] to use this forum to get into the details of the Hololens device. We may have a little session when we can have a deep dive... but don't want to do that at the moment.
PicoP is a registered Microvision trademark for its technology.
UPDATED RESEARCH ON MICROVISION
[Curated content based on excerpts from posts, blogs, media articles, and sponsored research]