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Apple and Samsung Ordered Talks Fail - Trial Date Set
Fluffeh writes "Apple and Samsung just can't come to an agreement, even when the two CEOs have been ordered by a court to hash it out over a two-day period. U.S. Judge Judy Koh had ordered the sit down prior to court proceedings between the two giants, but the talks resulted in nothing more than each side confirming its position. Although Apple CEO Tim Cook said, 'I've always hated litigation and I continue to hate it,' he also said, 'if we could get to some kind of arrangement where we'd be assured [they are inventing their own products] and get a fair settlement on the stuff that's occurred.' Perhaps Tim is worried that Samsung is still the primary component supplier for mobile products, including the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch, or perhaps Apple has bitten off more than it really wants to chew, with the litigation between the two getting to truly epic and global proportions."
It's like when we were kids and my sister and I would fight. My mom would tell us to "settle it yourselves, or I'm going to settle it for you!" Mom always ended up having to settle it because each of us knew we were right and refused to find middle ground.
Of course, looking back - I was the one who was right, and my sister was wrong.
#DeleteChrome
Dismissal? What the judge should do is take away both set of patents!
Perhaps Tim is worried that Samsung is still the primary component supplier for mobile products, including the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch or perhaps Apple has bitten off more than it really wants to chew with the litigation between the two getting to truly epic and global proportions.
None of that is in the article. So, Fluffeh is the new Fox News?
In general, two companies failing to come to an agreement means... two companies failed to come to an agreement. Not, "one company is 'worried' and 'has bitten off more than it really wants to chew'."
"A thousand times over, NO ONE GIVES A SHIT"
You're wrong.
Stupid people like you don't give a shit.
Smart people do give a shit. You do know smart people don't you ?
They are the people you call "boss", and they are where your paycheck
comes from. And they are in a higher position than you are precisely
because they DID give a shit and learned how to communicate well.
While the world media headlines are blaring "Apple sues Samsung" or "Samsung sues Apple", Apples is providing Samsung more one billion U. S. dollars to keep Samsung's Austin, Texas fab in operation
So what is your point? That Samsung should be so grateful to Apple for choosing them as a supplier of parts that they stop competing with Apple in other markets? If that is how things work then all Microsoft has to do is buy a billion dollars worth of Macs and Apple will drop the iPhone so they don't compete with Windows Mobile phones.
The fact that these massive companies can do business with each other on one hand while filing lawsuits with the other hand is not unusual. It is as relevant to this story as them both having members of staff named Eric.
It is possible that misunderstood your point. If that is the case then please tell us what possible scenario you had in mind when you said that you suspected that there is more than meets the eye? That Apple has paid Samsung to be its whipping boy so they can look like dicks when they sue them for using rounded corners? Or perhaps Apple are using this dispute to renegotiate their other contracts with Samsung. Or maybe it is all just to fill up newspaper columns so that journalists don't start talking about the other players in this area like Microsoft or Blackberry. (If the last one is true then it certainly worked!)
The problem is that Nokia, Samsung, Motorola, and Ericcson spend billions of USD annually on research that has contributed to the underlying technology that makes mobile phones work. Apple hasn't and has little to offer in a cross-licence agreement, since most of their mobile patent holdings consist of weak software patents--many of which probably wouldn't hold up under reexamination. I can imagine why the negotiations have failed, but I've also wondered if the FRAND licenses held by component manufacturers like Qualcomm extend to Apple.
Uhhh...not there isn't, this is just SOP when it comes to large corps. Look at how when AMD was suing Intel neither company tried to screw up their cross licensing agreements.
The problem friend is you are looking at this like how a person looks at it, where they don't go to court unless they hate someone or they were fucked over and they go to court because they can't do what they REALLY want to do which is go stomp the shit out of the other person.
Whereas the big corps often treat courts like a referee when there is a dispute. It doesn't mean they are gonna quit playing the game, it just means they need a ruling on the field. At the end of the day Samsung has parts that Apple wants and they aren't about to give up those parts and hamstring themselves just to go "Fuck you!" to Samsung. its not like cutting off that money would break Samsung anyway, they got plenty of others to buy from them, all it would do is hurt both in the short term, and probably Apple more considering how hot their consumer devices are ATM. It would be idiotic for Apple to screw up their supply line so they won't, simple as that. I bet after the ruling both companies will just go on like it never happened, that's just the way it works friend.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
That would hurt Samsung more than it would hurt Apple.
Because Samsung's patents are FRAND, and by taking it away, it means everyone who implements a cellphone (ANY cellphone) no longer has to negotiate with Samsung on those patents.
Apple's patents are design dress patents, which have a much shorter life (5 years), and really cover a specific design of product. If you wonder why companies periodically change the design of long-running products, it's usually because their design patents are about to expire, and the design isn't iconic enough to apply for a trademark (e.g., the shape of the Coca-Cola bottle IS trademarked, and it's why only Coke comes in those bottle designs).
Of course, the two sides can never come to an agreement - Apple knows Samsung's patents are FRAND, and since they're essential to implement a cellphone, believes they already got a license through purchase of Qualcomm chips. (Basically, Apple buys chips from Qualcomm, of which part of the price of those chips is used to pay for the patents paid to Samsung etc.). Samsung believes Apple should still pay, akin to the recording/videogame industry saying if you buy a CD/game secondhand, you still owe them money. Whether or not that is true, is up to bunch of agreements between Samsung, Qualcomm and Apple.
Apple's beef with Samsung is the design of their tablets, and Samsung believes they're distinct enough ("we don't let lawyers design our products"). Since it's not an FRAND issue, Apple values part of the whole Apple Experience(tm) is the product design and thus values it highly.
And it's also why Apple's push for nano-sim will never succeed. Even if Apple gives away patent licenses to anyone who asks for whatever terms they want. Nokia and RIM are opposing Apple purely because if Apple gets a patent into the FRAND pool, it means Apple pays a lot less money to them for their FRAND patents. Apple's got the money and everyone wants some of it, and they definitely do not want Apple getting their patents into the standard at all. Even if Apple's implementation is techically superior to Nokia and RIM's design - they will vote for an inferior standard in order to keep the Apple goldmine coming.
Samsung has a lot to lose by alienating Apple. Apple is a huge customer, very few organizations buy in the volumes that Apple works with. Losing a big account would suck, but Apple pouring billions of dollars into Samsung's competitors to improve their manufacturing technology will make a large impact on Samsung's ability to compete.
Also consider that Apple's order volume enables Samsung to run their factories at higher capacity, reducing overall operating costs by reducing or eliminating downtime. In some cases this could mean that a factory would not be able to operate profitably. Could Samsung's US fab maintain their price points and sustain their infrastructure development plans without Apple as a customer? I have no idea but it doesn't seem like an obvious answer.
Samsung can answer the question "You and what army of killer robots". Apple can answer the question "You and what army of hipsters who are to worried about their lattes to ever make a stand for anything". I know which one I would be more afraid to anger.
People forget that Samsung is an old fashioned giant, it may not have as much cash but it has business in nearly everything under the sun. Anything from ships to military to the chips that Apple so desperately needs. Samsung could loose all its mobile income tomorrow and it easily survive on everything else with full backing of the Korean government and its US military customers. Apple would be bankrupt and torn to shreds by its share holders and nobody has any incentive to keep it going. The world needs Samsung as a supplier, Apple? Nah.
It is what happens when you outsource all your actual production, just in time delivery sounds nice, but it means your suppliers own you once they realize this themselves. GOOD just in time delivery makes certain that you have a choice of suppliers and that none of them can survive without your business. Samsung can EASILY survive without and in fact, if they stop shipping to Apple, they kill a major competitor to their own products.
And if you think Apple can just go to someone else... they are all asian giants to. All of who would be perfectly happy to see Apple die and take over its business.
A lot of business stability exists because the status quo is just easier to keep. But Apple upset that, when you stir the calm waters, the sharks surface.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
There's no such thing as "design dress patents".
Are you perhaps conflating trade dress and design patents?
P.S. How can something blatantly false be at +5 informative?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Because Samsung's patents are FRAND, and by taking it away, it means everyone who implements a cellphone (ANY cellphone) no longer has to negotiate with Samsung on those patents.
The fact that the patents are FRAND patents means there should be zero negotiations involved in licensing the patents. It should simply be "the price we charge everyone is x% - that's your price too." Done. That's it. That's the point of a FRAND patent. That is Fair, Reasonable, And Non Discriminatory - FRAND. Any attempt to negotiate a different rate with different companies is the exact opposite of FRAND terms,
And that's why Samsung is in the wrong - they are attempting to get more from Apple than they do from other companies. That is not Fair, Reasonable, and certainly not Non Discriminatory.
Is there something that FORCES you to sell to your competitor?
Yes. Non Discriminatory. Anyone offering a FRAND patent (typically a patent that has been accepted into an industry standard) _MUST_ license the patent to anyone and everyone who is interested in licensing it at a Fair and Reasonable rate. Almost always this means that the license rate is lower than a non-FRAND patent would garner but the idea is that you make up the money due to the fact that everyone who wants to participate in that industry standard must license from you - you make it up in volume. But, yes, they MUST license to anyone and everyone, even if they don't want to.
Fair, Reasonable And Non Discriminatory. FRAND.
Samsung licensed the patents to Qualcomm who sold the chips to Apple. Apple is arguing that Samsung is attempting to double-dip - Apple already paid the license fee by purchasing the chips from a company who paid Samsung for the license.
"The GSM standard is set - you don't just go around adding things to it."
Then you don't get to put patents in it. Therefore you don't get FRAND. PART OF THE COST OF THE LICENSE is to put in to the pot.
Hey, kid, get a clue here. Here's a taster of what one is like. Patents cover things like "how do you make a more efficient antenna cheaper?". That'd be a GSM worthy patent.
What ISN'T worthy is "Make the box surrounding the GSM radio transmitter shiny black with rounded corners".
"There is a fixed cost for implementing it for anyone who wants it."
Yes, and that isn't being paid by Apple because Apple want the BETTER rate that others who get to put money in the pot for the GSM standard get.
Dimwad.
"Dimwad" ha.
You clearly don't understand how this works. GSM is a standard. It is required to make a cellular phone.
Companies all pool patents together to make the standard, in exchange for putting their patents in the pool the standards body puts them under FRAND terms.
Company X comes along, who had nothing to do with establishing the standard. They don't even have a radio division, however they wish to make a cellphone. They are required to use GSM (otherwise the phone would not work), therefore they need to licence the patents. Fortunately, to prevent the incumbent manufacturers from preventing new entries into the market, the patent pool is covered by FRAND terms, so they HAVE NO CHOICE but to licence the patents to whoever wants to make a cellphone.
It makes no difference what that company has to offer - it could be money, it could be other patents, it could be shares, it could be a pile of gold. The owners of the FRAND patents *must* licence them for the same value that everyone else paid.
"Worthy" doesn't even come into it. They have no choice. They *can* argue about just how much Apple's "dressing up the box" is worth, but ultimately it comes down to a cash value and Apple could pay in cash if they wanted to.
If I choose to make a cellphone in my garage, then I too have to pay the same amount that Apple is being charged, or that Motorola paid, or Sony, or Nokia. We all pay the same. Even though I have nothing to offer in return other than cash, that is how I would get to use the patents.
That's the entire point of the FRAND system, and you don't seem to understand that. You're very quick to throw around terms like "dimwad" though, which is pretty amusing.
There is no "better" rate - THERE IS ONLY ONE RATE AND IT IS THE SAME FOR EVERYONE. That is the literal meaning of "FAIR, REASONABLE AND NON-DISCRIMINATORY.
The FRAND holders *cannot* offer a cheaper rate to those already in the pool, nor can they charge more for those who do not have anything in the pool. They must all pay the same. You can cross licence patents as payment, but they must have an assigned value. So, if company A and B who both have patents in the pool cross licenced patent A and patent B then the two patents are of equal value, but they do have a cash value, so that Company C can purchase a licence to use Patent A for the cash amount from company A, and the exact same amount of money for patent B from company B.
They certainly can't say "well, your fancy box is nothing compared to our R&D for the antenna, so you don't get to use these patents, or if you want them you have to pay more". Bzzzzzzzzztt! Wrong!
The purpose of the FRAND pool is to repay all that "worthy" R&D. It isn't to create a dick waving contest for "who deserves the money?". So, the big radio players made better antennas and a system for wireless communication? Great! Now it means that other manufacturers can make products that use those innovations by using off-the-shelf radio hardware. Want to get paid for that R&D? Sure! Join this FRAND pool - now everyone will use the same standard! But wait! If you thought you could use your standards-enforced monopoly to throw your weight around, think again! Conditions for including your patent in the pool are that you licence it to everyone for the same cost, regardless of who that is and what they have to offer in return. If all they have is cash, then that is what they'll pay with.