Apple To Pay Ericsson Patent Royalties On iPhones and iPads (cio.com)

itwbennett writes: In settlement of a long-standing dispute over patents that Ericsson considers essential to the implementation of a number of mobile communications standards, including GSM, the 3G standard UMTS and LTE, Apple has agreed to pay Ericsson royalties on sales of iPhones and iPads. While the companies would not disclose further details of their agreement, Ericsson gave a hint about its value. For the full year 2015, Ericsson predicts its intellectual property rights revenue will amount to between 13 billion and 14 billion Swedish krona ($1.64 billion). In comparison, it reported IPR revenue of 10.6 billion krona for the full year 2014, including a 4.2 billion krona lump sum in settlement of a similar global dispute with Samsung Electronics.

Comments

Erickson actually crreated

[Anonymous Coward]

Erickson actually paid for the R&D to create something new, unlike curved edges and a single button that Apple patented. Fuck Apple.

Re:Erickson actually crreated

[macs4all]

Erickson actually paid for the R&D to create something new, unlike curved edges and a single button that Apple patented. Fuck Apple.

Ahem.

This independent Report from 2012, lists over 1200 Apple "mobile" Patents (which I'm sure has been added-to since then).

Obviously, there is a lot more than the Home Button and the Curved Corners here, eh?

Re:Erickson actually crreated

[macs4all]

Erickson actually paid for the R&D to create something new, unlike curved edges and a single button that Apple patented. Fuck Apple.

INSIGHTFUL!?!?!???

Well, I guess we see the Apple Haters are out in force on this one...

Re:Erickson actually crreated

[danbob999]

They also patented the "bounce" effect of the picture gallery app when you reach the end.

Re:Erickson actually crreated

[frnic]

I don't understand your point, Apple doesn't have to invent, it refines, that is ALL it does, and in refining it makes products that YOU hate and the rest of the world LOVES.

Sucks to be you.

Re:Erickson actually crreated

[Anonymous Coward]

Can we please stop with the stupid and braindead trolls about Apple patenting their designs?

Nobody is trolling, you just dont understand what a design patent is. Go find that out and you wont misinterpret discussion over things you dont understand as "trolls" anymore.

Trademarks are not patents any more than copyrights are.

Nobody is talking about trademarks, Apple's design patents are not trademarks.

Re:Erickson actually crreated

[dissy]

Erickson actually paid for the R&D to create something new

Erickson was also PAID for that something new, by Qualcom to make the GSM radio chip that Apple bought from them.

There is no justification Erickson should be paid multiple times for a single license.

Or if there is, why isn't it the responsibility of us end-users to pay Erickson, since we haven't paid for what the cell phone maker paid for and the radio chip maker also paid for?

Re:Erickson actually crreated

[Anonymous Coward]

Erickson actually paid for the R&D to create something new, unlike curved edges and a single button that Apple patented. Fuck Apple.

Right, because Apple has one patent and $0 R&D budget huh?

Re:Erickson actually crreated

[ThosLives]

The problem here isn't that a company patented something; it's that there is a patent-encumbered standard. Patents on implementations are fine, but patents on protocols or interfaces (even connector geometry and signal definition, in my opinion) should be disallowed.

Re:Erickson actually crreated

[Anonymous Coward]

ahem. Are you aware that Qualcomm (it has two m's), had nearly nothing to do with the development of GSM as they were pushing their CDMA technology?

Regards

A former Ericsson engineer.

Re:Erickson actually crreated

[dissy]

ahem. Are you aware that Qualcomm (it has two m's), had nearly nothing to do with the development of GSM as they were pushing their CDMA technology?
Regards
A former Ericsson engineer.

Then why is the Qualcomm name on the transceiver chip in the iphone 6?
Infineon is the name on the chip in the iphone 3.

Why is Ericsson's name no where to be found? Sounds like your company got paid by Qualcomm / Infineon and now want to double dip.

If they can legally go after 3rd hand parties to the purchase, then nothing is stopping them from suing me as a 4th hand party as well.
This action also harms me directly since I can't resell or even give away any of my phones, since even someone receiving it for free also owes Ericsson money for the patents yet again.

That is not a good situation, no matter how you spin it.

Re:Erickson actually crreated

[ewibble]

That is the point, 1200 patents, name 3 off the top of your head that aren't trivial, or would not have been invented otherwise. I can't think of 1.

Just coming up with an idea, has now become a legal minefield, patents are probably more detrimental it innovation than helpful.

Don't get me wrong apple have brought together technology in very stylish manner, by doing so made it mobile devices popular with consumers, but they really have not made that many significant technological innovations.

Re: Erickson actually crreated

[Anonymous Coward]

I've filled over 400 BS patents personally, non of them actually were for new inventions, just different wording of existing patents. At an average cost of a million in legal fees to invalidate 1 parent, I've got a warchest of bullshit

Re:Erickson actually crreated

[drolli]

You dont understand it. The round edges are the more important feature on the iphone than a working GSM/Mobile connection.

Re:Erickson actually crreated

[Anonymous Coward]

Because Qualcomm's CDMA2000 network lost the war, and you have to evolve or die. Post-2G GSM uses some cdma patent stuff anyway, its all cross licensed.

Ericsson still makes a lot (around a third of the market) of the equipment on the tower end of things, they only left the consumer / handset side.

This is pretty normal with electronics, for example every ATSC television has a licensing fee baked in. Every DVD player, every DVD, etc. I'm not really a fan of it on things that have state mandated standards (broadcast system, fe), as you can't really compete around it, but that is how it is.

Why can't you sell a phone? the license goes with the hardware.

Re:Erickson actually crreated

[Anonymous Coward]

Strange that this is considered insightful.

Apple was paying Ericsson royalties for LTE related patents for some time, and when renewal came up in 2014, Ericsson jacked up the price.

Apple didn't consider this FRAND, and went into dispute with Ericsson.

They've apparently now negotiated rate lower than what Ericsson was asking at the renewal point, and paid them a lump sum for the period in which they weren't paying anything.

This kind of thing happens quite frequently with standards related patents - i.e. its wilful infringement because the infringing party doesn't accept that the licencing rate being demanded by the patent owner is FRAND.

Apple , being vertically integrated and a whole widget maker, often gets smashed with this stuff, as for just about everyone else, the hardware manufacturer picks up part of the tab, and the OS vendor picks up the other part (as the patent owners often double and triple dip the different legal entities involved in making devices - OEM parts supplier, finished goods manufacturer and OS vendor).

Agreement has been reached and everybody wins.

Now if you want to warp that into "Fuck Apple" then by all means, but don't let the facts get in the way of your prejudice.

Re:Erickson actually crreated

[Solandri]

That patent needs to die too. All it is is the response of an underdamped harmonic oscillator. Fundamental math and physics which has been known about for centuries. Just because you implemented it or something that looks like it in software doesn't mean you "invented" it.

Re:Erickson actually crreated

[Solandri]

FWIW, the Apple design patent on the round edges and single button on the iPad was invalidated during the Samsung trial. Their design patent of the same on the iPhone was invalidated earlier this year, although curiously almost none of the mainstream press covered it.

Re: Erickson actually crreated

[mSparks43]

because there are more apple fans than android fans (even tho there are more android users than apple users)

and they get very cranky when those of us who don't really care that much about branding point out their "team" is in terminal decline.

Re:Erickson actually crreated

[tlhIngan]

The problem here isn't that a company patented something; it's that there is a patent-encumbered standard. Patents on implementations are fine, but patents on protocols or interfaces (even connector geometry and signal definition, in my opinion) should be disallowed.

That's pretty much every standard out there.

Standards aren't seeking the best technical solution - a standards committee is actually a gathering of all the movers and shakers who go about and make side deals trying to incorporate as many patents as possible. Lots of "if you scratch my back I'll scratch yours" to get support for patents to be included.

And patents is power - when the 4G standard was being ratified, Apple was holding a few patents for which there was huge support for and against - the carriers wanted it in, the device makers wanted it out. It didn't mean diddly that Apple was charging nothing for it (because it has to e FRAND), other than Apple was now "joining the club".

And there isn't any standard that isn't encumbered - Some of them are well organized like Ethernet and USB, others are well managed, like h.264, while others are chaotic, like HEVC (who created another organization because they hated the things MPEG-LA did to get h.264 widely adopted everywhere (free streaming on free public sites, caps on royalties, etc). In fact, they're backpedaling because guess what - no one's adopting HEVC due to all the costs).

Re:Erickson actually crreated

[monkeyxpress]

In addition, it is not even clear what real benefit Apple got from all those patents. The iPhone was copied by Samsung and Chinese manufacturers within a few years of release, but eight years on it is still creaming the lion's share of profit in the industry. Even in China, the land of knockoffs and a complete disregard for intellectual property, they are winning among those who can afford to pay for hipster value.

Apple has proven that you can fend of the competition in a highly competitive market much better using branding and shiny-shiny than a whole bunch of trivial technical patents that the average consumer doesn't give a stuff about.

The big tech players need to get together and stop this stupid patent war stuff. It isn't helping any of them, and just creates barriers for innovation and makes lawyers more valuable than people who actually make stuff. Google seems open to reform and Tesla has been quite progressive. If Apple joined in that might be enough to start building a real framework for IP protection that properly serves innovation.

Now that would be something really innovative, Mr Cook.

Re:Erickson actually crreated

[Plumpaquatsch]

That is the point, 1200 patents, name 3 off the top of your head that aren't trivial, or would not have been invented otherwise. I can't think of 1.

How does the fact that you have no clues about Apple's patent portfolio proof those patents aren't innovative?

Re: Erickson actually crreated

[Plumpaquatsch]

I've filled over 400 BS patents personally, non of them actually were for new inventions, just different wording of existing patents. At an average cost of a million in legal fees to invalidate 1 parent, I've got a warchest of bullshit

You forgot to mention you paid a war chest full of actual money to get that war chest full of bullshit. But I'm sure you'll make it up with all the license fees you get from the people implementing your bullshit.

Re:Erickson actually crreated

[Plumpaquatsch]

Erickson actually paid for the R&D to create something new, unlike curved edges and a single button that Apple patented. Fuck Apple.

If Apple's patents are worthless, why did Ericsson want cross-licensing deals to them?

Re:Erickson actually crreated

[TheCastro1689]

Kind of like you would expect more people to talk about, "Oh Apple invented this," or "No one has this on their phones because Apple invented it." Since he doesn't hear that kind of thing what was innovative?

Re:Erickson actually crreated

[Anonymous Coward]

"The license goes with the hardware"

But that's exactly what the grandparent is complaining *doesnt happen* now. Qualcomm (or other chip manufacturers) are paying Ericsson royalties to manufacture said hardware. Apple then purchases that hardware, but for some reason has to pay the royalties again...

Re:Erickson actually crreated

[Plumpaquatsch]

Kind of like you would expect more people to talk about, "Oh Apple invented this," or "No one has this on their phones because Apple invented it." Since he doesn't hear that kind of thing what was innovative?

As opposed to people talking about how Ericsson invented - what exactly did they invent? Not even "rounded corners". Probably nothing, because according to you the fact that nobody ever talks about them is more then proof enough that can't have invented anything. Thanks for the confirmation.

Re:Erickson actually crreated

[ewibble]

I asked, what the community to enlighten me which ones, are innovative, clearly you don't either otherwise you would have come up with examples. Instead you said nothing, I admit I have not read through 1200 patents, and have no intention of doing so.

Re:Erickson actually crreated

[Plumpaquatsch]

I asked, what the community to enlighten me which ones, are innovative,

All of them, apart from the ones you know to not be innovative. IOW, well, all of them still.

Re:Erickson actually crreated

[a_n_d_e_r_s]

End users pay for it when they buy the product. Usage is free for end customers. Selling products containing a patent is not allowed and yes you must pay all patent holders for it - even if the patent was included in the product by a

Example: Companies makes a produkt and sells it for $100 and the patent owner P demads 5% or $5 per unit.

Company B makes the product itself and pays $5 per unit to patentowner P.

Company A wants to make similar produkt as B and buys some items from B for $10 (containing the patent so P gets $0.50 per unit) and make the rest themselves and assembly them and sell its produkt for $100 on the market.

Should really patent owner P only get $0.50 per produkt from B when A pays $5 per unit in patent fees ?

No B needs to pay patents fees for added value and thus need to pay $4.50 per unit to P.

Re:Erickson actually crreated

[dissy]

That still isn't self-consistent and makes no sense.

If "A" has a patent and licenses it to "B" to make a product using said patent, why does "C" who buys the product from "B" need to pay anyone other than "B"?

Also where does it end?

You say if "C" buys a product from "B" who licensed a patent from "A", you claim both "B" must pay "A", and somehow "C" must pay both "B" and "A".
If "D" buys that product from "C", now "D" must pay both "C" and "A".
If "E" buys that product from "D", now "E" must pay both "D" and "A".

The detail is, why do you say the "end user" is excluded? Especially considering the fact that I as an end user could be any one of the above letters!

"A" holds a patent.
"B" makes a chip using patented method, so pays "A" a license fee.
"C" makes a carrier board containing the chip "B" makes, so pays "B" for their already licensed chip, but "A" wants paid a second time.
"D" makes a module containing the carrier board made by "C" and so pays "C" for their board containing the already licensed chip.
"E" makes a peripheral containing "D"s module, so pays "D" for their already-licensed-three-times-now product.

I am "F" the end-user who pays "E" for the thing they make to plug into my computer. Why must I pay "E" and "A" both?

You first claim I as an end user don't need to pay "A", but you continue to say anyone who sells a product must pay "A" again.
So if I am finished with the product I bought from "E", perhaps I would like to sell it on ebay or something. Now I am selling a product containing "A"s patented method, which you later say I do have to pay "A" for, even though I am an end user which you said I don't have to pay "A" for.

And all this time "A" has been paid seven times for ONE chip "B" already paid for!

If "A" sells licenses for $5 per unit, well "B" makes the units and pays $5 each.
Why should "C" and "D" and "E" and "F" (and whomever I sell it to on ebay) each also have to pay "A" another $5?

At this point that "A" somehow has made $35 for this one unit that is supposed to be $5/unit!

The end point here is, only one of two things can be true:
A) The license for the patent goes with the hardware, in which case only "B" pays "A" and that is it.
or
B) The license for the patent does NOT go with the hardware, in which case only the end-user must pay for that unit, B, C, D, and E no longer have the hardware so don't need to also pay the same $5/unit cost

You can't claim the answer is both yes and no at the same time.

Re:Erickson actually crreated

[Plumpaquatsch]

Should really patent owner P only get $0.50 per produkt from B when A pays $5 per unit in patent fees ?

Yes, because they decided it would be better to charge a percentage than a fixed sum, or a combination.

Re:Erickson actually crreated

[Pascal Sartoretti]

Erickson actually paid for the R&D to create something new

Or maybe they have excellent patent lawyers

Re:Erickson actually crreated

[Anonymous Coward]

You know there's a difference between "useable" and "love" right?

Do you know anyone, at all, that "loves" a Windows PC? I'll bet you know someone that "loves" their Mac.

Same with Android, though the gulf is far more narrow. There are some legit Android fans out there, but the vast majority of those devices you're prattling on about are "good enough" for the free-with-contract users that are carrying them. And there's nothing wrong with that - it's a customer that is still happy with their purchasing decision. But there's still a large gap between "like it good enough" and "love it", and that is borne out through the repeat business that Apple gets generation after generation, and other Android OEMs don't (except Samsung).

I'm sure you already thought of that, though, sugar mouth. Lose the ad hominem attacks, the point you are attempting to make doesn't bear any resemblance to reality.

Re:Erickson actually crreated

[MachineShedFred]

I believe this has to do with indemnity clauses in the contracts between Qualcomm and Erickson. If Qualcomm isn't given sublicense rights in their agreement, then Qualcomm's customers are fucked. Which means that Qualcomm would be fucked just after, as nobody in their right mind would want to buy into the losing end of a licensing lawsuit.

I really don't understand this one at all.

Re:Erickson actually crreated

[Anonymous Coward]

You project your inadequacies in all of your posts. In your short post history I saw you made this new fakefuck sockpuppet account to spread your misery to others. You're sad and You have serious issues. Realize something: We all know you do by your posting and your post history shows it.

Re:Erickson actually crreated

[dissy]

Why can't you sell a phone? the license goes with the hardware.

So you finally admit Apple is fully licensed to use these patents (you just said the license goes with the hardware Apple purchased to put in their phones)

Figures?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know what "IPR Revenue" is but Ericsson's yearly sales are on the order of 200 BSEK, not 10.6.

IPR [Re:Figures?]

[Geoffrey.landis]

I don't know what "IPR Revenue" is

"Intellectual Property Rights" revenue.

From the summary: " For the full year 2015, Ericsson predicts its intellectual property rights revenue will amount to between 13 billion and 14 billion Swedish krona ($1.64 billion). In comparison, it reported IPR revenue of 10.6 billion krona for the full year 2014,..."

No more than fair

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple only put together purchased micro-electronics into cases they design, while companies like Ericsson actually invest into research and development and invent micro-electronics, and have legit patents for many things (as opposed to the trivial things that make up the bulk of U.S patents). Apple have been dodging Ericsson and others' patent royalties for years, it's about time they pay up themselves.

Re:No more than fair

[macs4all]

Apple only put together purchased micro-electronics into cases they design

Care to support that statement, since Apple even designs their own SoCs, let alone the rest of the gadgets.

Re:No more than fair

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. "You're holding it wrong". We remember.

Re:No more than fair

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean the companies that Apple bought designs the SoCs for Apple (which tended to be made by, and with the technologies and manufacturing know-how of, Samsung among others). The A4 was essentially designed by PA Semi, and uses a core designed by and licensed from ARM Holdings. That's held constant through today...

Re:No more than fair

[Anonymous Coward]

They bought an existing company, and now they are manufacturing a CPU and GPU invented and developed by ARM (British) and Samsung (Korean). The only thing American about your iPhone and many other Apple products is the external appearance and packaging, exactly as Apple writes on the back: Designed in the USA. The real hard work was done somewhere else.

Re:No more than fair

[Anonymous Coward]

... and ARM Holdings was a joint venture between Apple, Acorn and VLSI Technology Inc..

Christ, the trolls are as thick as shit these days.

Re:No more than fair

[peragrin]

Apple was buying chips from Qualcomm that used ericdons tech. Qualcomm already pays ericson for the patent. Now Apple has to pay twice for the same product

Re:No more than fair

[Anonymous Coward]

On top of all that, the core in Apple's processors is not designed by ARM holdings, it just matches ARM's interface standards in effect (counting the instruction set as one of the interfaces).

Re:No more than fair

[Anonymous Coward]

Somewhere else being Cupertino, presumably, given that that's where the CPU and a lot of the GPU design work goes on. Though Cambridge and Kings Langley get a shout in too.

Re:No more than fair

[Anonymous Coward]

Qualcomm had paid for them to use the patent, not for others to use the patent. Just because I have some windows software that does 8.3 to long name conversion on VFAT does not mean that I have the patent license to write that up in some code and give that code away for everyone else to use, despite the cost of the software including the cost of licensing the patent.

And equally, neither did Apple have the right to make a product and sell it using the patented tech they did not have a license to.

Re:No more than fair

[Plumpaquatsch]

Yes. "You're holding it wrong". We remember.

So you read your phone manual: http://dontholditwrong.tumblr....

Re:No more than fair

[Plumpaquatsch]

Qualcomm had paid for them to use the patent, not for others to use the patent.

Kids, look up "patent exhaustion doctrine" for your homework.

But lets look at it objectively: why would Qualcomm pay Ericsson any license fees to use the patents if they didn't actually use the patents? They certainly don't sell any end user products only chips implementing the patent. Which are useless if you don't put them into a phone. Or did they instead pay to use cell phones made by other companies inside Qualcomm? But that would also be double dipping, not to mention it would mean all companies would have to pay fees to Ericsson for using phones - in addition to all the companies making those phones, and all the companies making the chips implementing the patented features.

Re:No more than fair

[Anonymous Coward]

You know that the ARM standard was brought about because of Apple back in the day, right? Which is why they have a perpetual license to all things ARM? Because of a little product called Newton, which used the original ARM CPU?

Apple sold all their ARM holdings stock back during the dot com implosion to become profitable, and never looked back. But they held onto that license, and ARM only exists as it is today because of Apple.

But I'm sure you knew that.

Re:No more than fair

[MachineShedFred]

Wait.

So you're saying that Qualcomm negotiated end use rights for a radio standard that only they could use, and anyone they resold chips based upon that standard is fucked? In effect, you're saying that Qualcomm negotiated with every one of their chip customers in bad faith to purchase rights from Qualcomm for something they did not own, and could not sublicense, and set them all up for a legal shit show with Ericsson?

Or, do you think it's more likely, that you don't know what you're talking about? I think I know which one I'd bet on.

Re:Erickson actually created

[hackwrench]

Where have you been?
https://www.bing.com/search?q=...

Neither here nor there

[Anonymous Coward]

"Krona" is singular, it should be 14 billion Swedish kronor

Re:Neither here nor there

[U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M]

"Kronor"? Sounds Borgish.

Re:Neither here nor there

[Anonymous Coward]

Or, I dunno, maybe the guy who made up the borg where inspired by the Nordic languages. After all "borg" means "Castle" (the defensive structure) in Swedish. Writers getting inspired by oddball languages is hardly unheard of.

Re:Neither here nor there

[Anonymous Coward]

That was the whole point of the video clip, they acknowledged the inspiration by directly mentioning that Borg "sounds Swedish".

That's a major woosh over your head, AC.

Re:Neither here nor there

[aliquis]

"Kronor"? Sounds Borgish.

That's because we are. You will be assimilated.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
You're welcome!

Re:Neither here nor there

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope. It's a case of something being so obvious you don't even have to watch some random youtube-clip to guess it.. After all, "borg" has it's roots in old Norse - it's a derivative of "berg", which means mountain - simply guessing where they got it from is pretty obvious, if your native language happens to belong to any of the descendants. But I guess that is a bit of a woosh over your head, fellow AC.

Plural "kronor"

[Anonymous Coward]

FYI.

"Intellectual Property Rights"

[Anonymous Coward]

Just another rent-seeking leach of a company. When you can't create products and sell them on the economy, just turn around and sue a successful company - try to ride on their coattails like any other parasite.

Re:"Intellectual Property Rights"

[Anonymous Coward]

Any half-decent programmer can implement a patent or a spec (since a patent is essentially a how-to guide). But who's going to pay the guy writing the spec/patent and the pseudo code of the algorithm? Apple is the leech here for copying other people's stuff and making money off it.

Re:"Intellectual Property Rights"

[MachineShedFred]

And anyone that had a brain would know that Apple *was* paying Ericsson for these patents under the FRAND terms that are required for the standards of which they are a part. Then Ericsson tried to change the license fees, which violates the "and non-discriminatory" bit of FRAND. Apple told them to get fucked, Ericsson sued, they settled it on something that Apple and Ericsson agreed to. Apple then paid up for past out-of-license use during the period of lapse.

This shit happens all the time. The only reason we're hearing about it, is because people around here get a blue-veined diamond cutter hard-on whenever Apple is mentioned in a patent court filing.

Tax Payment

[Anonymous Coward]

OH YEAH BABY!

Missy Tim Cook no Al Capone NO MO.

Hey Timmy See! You likes to Eats'n'ns "Suckling Pig", human babies style, OH YEAH! IRS Dey No'bout Dat. YEAH!

Got To Pay Da TAX BABY!

Ha ha

And soon other companies will have to pay Apple

[Plumpaquatsch]

http://www.ibtimes.com/apple-e...

Apple and Ericsson will work together to develop 5G technology, the next generation of mobile data communication, having signed a global patent agreement that ends lawsuits in Europe and the U.S. The deal will see Apple being allowed to use Ericsson's standard essential patents as well as certain other patents held by the Swedish company while both parties have also agreed to end all ongoing litigation between them. Looking to move away from court room battles, Apple and Ericsson will now look to work more closely together collaborating in "multiple technology areas," which include 5G development, video network traffic management, and wireless network optimization. "We are pleased with this new agreement with Apple, which clears the way for both companies to continue to focus on bringing new technology to the global market, and opens up for more joint business opportunities in the future," Kasim Alfalahi, chief intellectual property officer at Ericsson, said in a statement accompanying the announcement.

Re:And soon other companies will have to pay Apple

[MachineShedFred]

Wait, so you mean the trolls are wrong and this isn't some huge victory against the goliath that is big bad Apple, stealing ALL THE PATENTS?

It's almost like this is the course of regular business!