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Apple Sues Qualcomm For Roughly $1 Billion Over Royalties (cnbc.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: Apple is suing Qualcomm for roughly $1 billion, saying Qualcomm has been "charging royalties for technologies they have nothing to do with." The suit follows the U.S. Federal Trade Commission's lawsuit against Qualcomm earlier this week over unfair patent licensing practices. Apple says that Qualcomm has taken "radical steps," including "withholding nearly $1 billion in payments from Apple as retaliation for responding truthfully to law enforcement agencies investigating them." Apple added, "Despite being just one of over a dozen companies who contributed to basic cellular standards, Qualcomm insists on charging Apple at least five times more in payments than all the other cellular patent licensors we have agreements with combined." Apple also alleges that once it began cooperating with Korean authorities' antitrust investigation of Qualcomm, the company withheld $1 billion in retaliation. Korean regulators fined Qualcomm $854 million for unfair trade practices in December.
"The FTC claims that to prevent Apple from launching a WiMax iPhone after Sprint deployed its first WiMax network in 2008, Qualcomm 'agreed to rebate to Apple royalties' received from the iPhone maker's contract manufacturers 'in excess of a specified per-handset cap.' In other words, Qualcomm allegedly let Apple pay lower royalties to secure a long-term spot in the iPhone, lock rivals out of the baseband market, and deal a fatal blow to the WiMax standard."
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Doesn't this go both ways ?
That's a huuuuuge lawsuit.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Apple's highly innovative inventions, namely flat rectangle with a screen on it, and an arrangement of icons in a grid clearly constitute innovations of incalculable value. Where as Qualcomm's patents simply involve leading edge telecommunication developments that far surpass most of their rivals in performance. Obviously, nothing special. Surely not noteworthy enough for their extensive paten portfolio, one of the largest in the wireless world, to justify 5x the royalty rates.
When I've seen the name Qualcomm in news headlines, its technology related 50% of the time, and trade violations related 50% of the time. They are the smartphone processor market leader and they got it with cutthroat tactics. South Korea fined them over $800 million in December. http://www.anandtech.com/show/10942/south-korea-qualcomm-anti-trust-fine
for real, bonafide, genuine inventions in radio-communication (unlike their own go-sue material, shapes of buttons on a screen and what direction they slide in), and they refuse paying Ericsson simply because they are confident their dishonest American courts will side with them so they can get away with it.
A bunch of dishonest fuckers and hypocrites is what Apple's management are.
No more machines made for vegetarians. Give me my data truck.
---- The above post was generated by the Turing Institute. Maybe.
I loved Eudora. A great mail client.
---- The above post was generated by the Turing Institute. Maybe.
Hahaha, you funny. Apple is an amazing patent troll. They, however, were smart enough to buy mindshare.
If Apple is making regular royalty payments to Qualcomm. If so, how does this statement from Apple that QC is "withholding nearly $1 billion in payments from Apple as retaliation for..." make any sense? Is QC refusing to cash the check? Asking for bigger payments? Genuinely confused.
Apple is no longer innovating and creating unique products that consumers want. If Qualcomm keeps doing what it does best, they can hopefully outpace the deluge of lawsuits & IP thefts from every side. Unfortunately, this seems to be the trend for any new technology from arduino kits to Raptors.
Namaste
Is anybody, like me, sick of all these patent squabbles?
Welcome to the 21st century shitpile.
No, your children are not the special ones. Nor are your pets.