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Apple Demands $40 Per Samsung Phone For 5 Software Patents
An anonymous reader writes "Apple and Samsung couldn't agree on a patent cross-license even though their CEOs met recently. What could be the reason (or one of the reasons) is that Apple is asking for obscenely high patent royalties. At the March 31 trial an Apple-hired expert will present to a California jury (already the third jury trial in this dispute) a damages claim of $40 per device (phone or tablet) for just a handful of software patents. The patents are related to, but don't cover all aspects and elements of, functionalities like slide-to-unlock, autocorrect, data synchronization, unified search and the famous tap-on-phone-number-to-dial feature. Google says there are 250,000 patentable inventions in a smartphone. On average, Apple wants $8 per patent per device. That would add a patent licensing bill of $2 million to each gadget. So Apple and Samsung will be back to court again later this month."
Most of this thing is just common sense technological progress. If Apple didn't come up with it, someone else inevitably would have. There wasn't any spark of genius required.
Apple are acting like total cunts.
Whether they're in the right or wrong, under current patent law, they're still acting like total cunts.
No comment on how that compares to their customers.
So if their are 250,000 patentable inventions in a phone, and that phone retails for $600, by my math each of those inventions are worth about a quarter of a cent per device. So it looks like Apple has a justifiable claim to 1.25 cents per phone.
You're not allowed to patent an obvious advancement.
But patent law is offensively fucked up. Basically, it's a war of money. Both sides line up patent lawyers (one of a very few formally recognized specializations for attorneys in the U.S.) and burn money until someone gives up. This case will almost certainly wind up before the Supreme Court eventually - unless Samsung folds and pays to make apple go away. Fortunately, Samsung is sufficiently profitable that it can saturate the process with more money than required and write it off as a margin cost for continuing to compete in the smartphone market.
Apple's patents are offensively bad. There *is* enough there to require a jury verdict to nullify them rather than a summary ruling by the Court (preferably one where the foreman doesn't lie about having a personal stake in proving that software patents are nearly always valid - like the last trial between these two) but in a sane system of patents there would be no question that "slide to unlock" is a variation of long established design concepts - i.e. a latch.
Well, actually, there's another option, which Samsung opted for - infringe the patents and then drag the issue out in court and wage a PR war of misinformation. Most companies, however, either agree to license the patents or, if they can't reach an agreeable rate with the patent holder, design around the patents instead
Bias much?
I guess the bias the other way is roughtly that Samsung rightfully determined that the patents were obvious non-innovations that should never have been issued a patent in the first place and infringed on them knowing that the courts would see the patents fall once someone actually challenged them.
The truth is somewhere in the middle I expect.
Apple's patents that they are enforcing aren't FRAND. They are under no obligation to license them to anyone.
And if they never should have been issued patents for them in the first place? What then? Apparently to the courts we must go.
Now, feel free to mod me down since I'm clearly an Apple fanboy despite speaking the truth and I've dared to impugn the honour of Samsung...
Oh the hell with that, I doubt Samsung has much honour to impugn but... swipe to unlock et al shouldn't even be patents.
I'd cease all production of the chips that Apple buys. See if you can find a new fab on short order.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
No, you are completely wrong.
FRAND patents are not of little value, and are not normally licensed for little value.
They are normally part of cross-licensing agreements between companies, with small associated payments to make the contracts binding, but primarily they are used as a technology trading base.
Apple of course refuses to participate in the trading.
They say 'license your FRAND patents to us for the same as everyone else, and then we will screw you to the wall for our patents'.
FRAND owners say "WTF? those fees are for crosslicensing agreements, without that, you need to pay real money'
Apple says "Then we wont pay you anything, and since we appear to have the US legal system all tied up, piss off, in fact, we will sue you over a bunch
of patents we never invented, just added the words 'on a capacitive touch screen' to the end of! ha!"
And if you think thats good business, well.... time will tell. I wonder how well Apple will do when the next round of critical infrastructure wireless patents are no longer FRAND, and Apple hold no cards.
Kill the meaning of FRAND patents is a standardisation disaster, and a short term cash grab by Apple to the detriment of everyone else, including their own users.
I finished a book a while ago that I think really illustrates why software patents are objectionable, and what's wrong with the patent system as a whole, today.
The book is "The Last Lone Inventor" by Evan I. Schwartz. It describes the work of Philo T. Farnsworth to create television. During the time that Philo was working on television, many scientists employed by the radio industry were also working to develop usable video transmission technology, with inferior designs. Most of their work involved mechanical television cameras that used spinning wheels. Philo's invention was all electronic. It scanned, transmitted, and displayed a line at a time to create a two dimensional image. This remained the fundamental technology in displays at least until LCD and plasma screens replaced CRT.
Now, while many other patent related problems were well demonstrated by the book, the one most clearly related to software patents pertains to the intent of the patent system. Patents are not, as they are often regarded today, a recognition that an inventor owns his ideas. Ideas are not property, and have never been recognized as such. Patents are a recognition that some inventions rely on information that isn't obvious. Some inventions require the inventors to test and improve their inventions for years before they can be brought to market. Underlying the patent system is the belief that this work will not be done, that inventors will not fund years of experimentation and development, if they don't believe that they'll be able to sell that invention to recover the costs of its development. In a free market, competitors will be able to offer the same invention at a lower cost than its inventor, because the competitors did not have to invest in the development of the invention. Patents attempt to create an incentive to invent by ensuring that inventors who do invest in development are given a limited monopoly on their invention.
However, patents aren't free. It is not enough for the inventor to merely offer his invention to the market to receive patent protection on it. An inventor is also required to completely disclose how the invention works. After the patent period expires, the public must be able to continue using the invention independent of the inventor.
That is the fundamental purpose of the patent system: to benefit the public by providing it with the knowledge required to reproduce the invention. It is the public's benefit, not the inventors, that is the goal of the patent system. The inventor's benefit is simply the means to achieve that goal. The Constitution of the United States reflects this:
To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries
Philo's work was exactly the progress of science that the patent system was intended to promote. His invention required tremendous investment to create. His idea was sound, but a great deal of experimentation was required to create a working device. Other highly skilled scientists were not able to create a working device on their own, or created working devices of significantly lesser quality. The exact properties of the materials and components used in the camera and television set were not previously known, and were discovered through Philo T. Farnsworth's experimentation and development.
The invention of television was worthy of patent protection.
Software development isn't like the invention of television in ANY way.
Software development does involve testing cycles, but otherwise almost never involves the kind of experimentation involved in the invention of television, because the exact properties of computer operations are previously known. Computers perform a limited number of operations, exactly according to a specification, and exactly the same every time. Because the behavior of the system is known in advance, the uncertainty inherent in real world material inventions does not exist in software development.
I wonder what Apple would charge if Samsung agreed to using square corners instead.
The title and summary are clearly slanted by how it describes the case as Apple demanding $40 per Samsung device, then uses that claim to say Apple "is asking for obscenely high patent royalties". If you read the rest of the summary carefully (no, I didn't read the article!), what is happening is an Apple expert witness will be presenting evidence that the patents in use by Samsung are worth (by his judgement) $40 per device.
Basic trial tactics: ask for x, claim damages are far greater than x, then settle for an amount less than x.
So Apple want $40 a phone for a few cosmetic and convenient things they were the first to bring to market, like tapping a number or bounceback when you over scroll - but they baulk at paying $2 a phone for stuff that *makes the phone actually work* like 3G/4G, WIFI, etc. etc. How the hell is that ok? And if you want to say those 3G patents Samsung hold are FRAND and essential for phones, fine - but Apple still wasn't even paying the FRAND amount. So why can't Apple's innovations be considered essential and ubiquitous to normal mobile phones, now and also be forced to be reasonable??