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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.
They also patented the "bounce" effect of the picture gallery app when you reach the end.
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
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
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.