Slashdot Mirror
Apple Overturns Motorola's German iPad and iPhone Sales Bans
SpuriousLogic sends this excerpt from a BBC article detailing the suspension of a sales ban on certain Apple products in Germany:
"Motorola Mobility had forced Apple to remove several iPad and iPhone models from its online store [yesterday] after enforcing a patent infringement court ruling delivered in December. An appeals court lifted the ban after Apple made a new license payment offer. However, Germany-based users may still face the loss of their push email iCloud service after a separate ruling. 'A suspension like this is available only against a bond, but Apple is almost drowning in cash and obviously won't have had a problem with obtaining and posting a bond.' ... A statement from Apple said: 'All iPad and iPhone models will be back on sale through Apple's online store in Germany shortly.'"
Reader DJRumpy points out that Motorola is seeking royalties of 2.25% for Apple's wireless devices in exchange for a license to use Motorola's patents.
You use something someone created, you pay them for it. Then why is it when the situation is reversed, Apple says: "F*ck you! I'm going to ban it.". Just makes them seem like hypocrites and frankly, douches.
Apple flings lawsuits like mad. Then it bites them in the butt. Can we all just agree that the patent system is idiotic and far too overbearing already?
Simple. If every one of the (estimated) eighteen companies that own essential GSM patents demanded a separate license at 2.2% instead of the few pennies per unit that they almost certainly charge to everyone else, it would add up to almost half the cost of the device.
Besides, there's debate over whether Apple's purchase of off-the-shelf GSM silicon (rather than designing it themselves) means that they already paid for the license, in which case Motorola is double dipping....
2.25% is an enormous sum of money, when you consider that a device might use patented techs from hundreds of companies. If each of these hundreds of companies asked for 2.25%, you're gonna be in trouble.
Except that with the other manufacturers, it probably has been a patent cross licensing, something that Apple has refused to do from the start.
And Apple built his iUniverse around infringing products, as it refused to license the technologies (waiting for some court to come to help)... IANAL but there is clearly a damage to the other players as Apple may not have been able to enter the market like he did should he have paid for the licences from the start... At that time, it was far from "some little money out of a big warchest"...
Source.
Frand-type patents involve technologies that are deemed to be part of an industry standard. In this case Motorola's innovation is deemed crucial to the GPRS data transmission standard used by GSM cellular networks across the world.
Companies must offer Frand-type patents for a reasonable fee to anyone willing to pay.
Apple had previously said it would be willing to pay the fee going forward, but the two firms dispute how much Apple should pay for failing to license the technology up until now. Missed payments are not covered by the "reasonable" rule, and Motorola is able to demand a more expensive price.
"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." - Tolkien
Except that with the other manufacturers, it probably has been a patent cross licensing, something that Apple has refused to do from the start.
Apple does cross license their FRAND patents which are included in the standards. They don't cross license their other patents such as UI and proprietary hardware. That's the whole point, Motorola seems to be trying to use their FRAND patents (which were included in standards only because of their promises) to leverage against Apple to get licensing to patents that aren't part of any standard. It is exactly why there are rules in the first place about how you can use patents once you agree they are to be used in a standard.
As mentioned above, the 'reasonable' part doesn't apply if you don't pay when you should.
Source for the second (and hopefully last) time :)
"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." - Tolkien
You mean like paying when you buy the chips from Qualcomm who had already paid a licensing fee to Motorola for the patents in question?
Yeah.
Motorola is attempting to double-dip. They want money from Qualcomm _and_ Apple for the same chip.
Actually, that last part isn't true - what Motorola actually wants is access to Apple's non-FRAND patents and they're attempting to leverage their own FRAND patents against them in the hopes of forcing a cross-licensing agreement (*). For chips made by Qualcomm who already paid to license the patents. So the double-dipping part is true...
* And I remain baffled that the Slashdot crowd considers this business practice to be acceptable, regardless of who does it or against whom it is done. It goes against the very heart of everything that FRAND stands for and, if successful, will have chilling effects on, well, pretty much any and every industry that makes use of FRAND patents to establish industry standards. In my opinion, _ANY_ company that abuses a FRAND patent should be viewed in a negative light. Then again, I must be new here...
As that very article points out, Motorola has declined various settlement offers from Apple for PAST infringement of Motorola's patents. Motorola has licensed these very patents to Apple on FRAND terms for use in newly developed products which is why the iPhone 4S was not affected by the sales injunction, only the older models.
Since Apple did not license the patent on FRAND terms before pushing out the older iPhones, Motorola does not have any obligation to be fair, reasonable or non-discriminatory in negotiating the deal for those products now.