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Qualcomm Says It Won Case Banning Sale of Older iPhones in China (bloomberg.com)
Qualcomm says it has won a ruling in China against Apple that bans the sale of some iPhone models in that country. From a report: The Fuzhou Intermediate People's Court ruled that Apple is infringing two Qualcomm patents and issued injunctions against the sale of the iPhone 6S, iPhone 6S Plus, iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus, iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone X, the San Diego, California-based chipmaker said in a statement Monday. The most recent models introduced in September, the iPhone XS, XR and XS Max, are not covered by the ban.
the clear winner in this dispute ;)
Patents make everything better! Imagine trying to be a startup competitor to Qualcomm - ha, the USPTO will maintain their market dominance for them, no matter how bad the security is on their baseband radios. Which is interesting, because high-clearance individuals also use those phones. Even Intel is having trouble inventing around what Qualcomm got to first.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Patents do eventually expire, though we can argue against whether or not they do so quickly enough. The problem with eliminating them entirely is that you trade one problem (market dominance by patent holder) for another (market dominance by large established manufacturers) and I'm not sure there's an argument for the latter being ultimately better than the former.
I do find it hard to believe that it's impossible to design around Qualcomm's patents. It may merely be expensive and difficult, but I suspect that has to do with the nature of the industry and the limited number of individuals capable of producing meaningful work within it.
All your base are belong to us.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
Still, patents should have variable term lengths depending on the industry. At this rate, each generation of wireless is patent-encumbered the whole time it's current-gen and beyond.
you trade one problem (market dominance by patent holder) for another (market dominance by large established manufacturers) and I'm not sure there's an argument for the latter being ultimately better than the former.
Odd...seems like we have both those problems right now
US8698558B2 would appear rather difficult to design around. Itâ(TM)s a system that puts the radio to sleep unless it is either transmitting or receiving data in a packetized format intended for communication with a mobile device. It effectively means âoeI can listen just enough to know if I need to wake up and listen for moreâ. If one couldnâ(TM)t apply power states to a radio, or if they did they were unable to step back up to a higher level to facilitate bidirectional communications, one would need to always run the receiver at full power to ensure receive data isnâ(TM)t missed. In mobile devices, battery life tends to be important after all. This one would seem like it hold qualify for FRAND, if not ultimately be deemed obvious / overly broad.
Thirty four characters live here.
If you can't design around an idea, then they made a GOOD patent. Qualcomm actually produced something of intellectual value. Good on them. So either A) Pay the man, B) Produce something that's a shoddy knockoff, or C) Invent your own *** **** stuff. If you don't want do to either of those three, you don't belong in business.
Side note. I acknowledge the abuse of the patent system for obviously/overly broad patents in general. While this case in particular does not seem to fit that issue. It is a fundamental patent needed by modern communications equipment, that however, does not mean it is obvious, it means it is VALUABLE.
The problem is patent holders (and some judges) who believe that ideas and concepts can and should be patented. A patent is supposed to cover a specific application of an idea, not the idea itself. Putting a phone to sleep between packets should be available to everyone provided they find their own way of doing it rather than copying the specific electronic layout.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
D: Get enough legal power so the patent can be invalidated.
The funny thing is that I don't feel much sympathy for Apple, especially their scorched earth patent campaigns where they are not letting anyone else license their stuff, forcing other companies to sue back or go under. Microsoft just asked for their $3/device, people paid them, and now, their biggest source of income is Linux based stuff because of this. Had Apple done this, likely this whole Qualcomm mess would never have happened.
Process patents are well defined and are a reasonable item to patent.
China has courts that judge patents? Isn't this the same China that thumbs it's nose at Intellectual Property laws and makes high-volume low-quality copies of any and all products?
Apple has already found a workaround on their new models, so, yeah, there are workarounds.
If you can't design around an idea, then they made a GOOD patent. Qualcomm actually produced something of intellectual value. Good on them. So either A) Pay the man, B) Produce something that's a shoddy knockoff, or C) Invent your own *** **** stuff. If you don't want do to either of those three, you don't belong in business.
Side note. I acknowledge the abuse of the patent system for obviously/overly broad patents in general. While this case in particular does not seem to fit that issue. It is a fundamental patent needed by modern communications equipment, that however, does not mean it is obvious, it means it is VALUABLE.
Being able to put something into a semi-sleep state to save energy (same as battery life) is not obvious? I'm pretty sure that VCRs and TVs have been doing this since the invention of the remote control. It's similar to the patents the people complain about where they take an idea and add "but on a computer" and then patent it....
The communist Chinese government probably either can't twist Apple into making iPhones into just another addition to the mobile surveillance and tracking of Chinese citizens, or they just plain can't break into the thing in any way themselves to twist the iPhone itself into being part of their surveillance program -- therefore they don't want iPhones in the country at all.
I am not informed enough on the specific aspects of this patent to judge the obviousness of it, nor do I want to be. But I would agree that Qualcomm should have to defend itself against that accusation in court.
But....... I will disagree with your blanket argument that "but on a computer" patents are inherently faulty. Applying tried and true ideas to a new problem is a valuable innovation. It can both create true value and be non-obvious. Perhaps a higher hurdle is needed but a blanket dismissal of that type would be uncalled for.
Yes, for a specific process. Not just A--> B, pay me.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
No they're asking that China ignore some of the shadier dealings of Qualcomm. For those that have been following the case Qualcomm has a questionable way of licensing patents. Normally you pay for a license directly or you buy a product from a licensee that paid for a license. For example if you want an ARM chip you can pay ARM directly and have a chip made by a foundry or you buy a chip from the likes of Samsung, TI, NVidia, etc.
That's not Qualcomm's model. You must pay for chip from a 3rd party AND you have to pay Qualcomm. However Qualcomm paid "rebates" on patents licenses. And Apple did that and Qualcomm paid rebates. Until Apple cooperated in the South Korean investigation against Qualcomm. At which point Qualcomm refused to give Apple any rebates. So Apple stopped paying their Qualcomm's secondary license fees citing breach of contract.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
What's missing from the summary is the fact that, in addition to not covering this year's models, this injunction doesn't bar sales of any iPhone running iOS 12, which is the latest version of iOS. Given that every model Apple currently sells can be updated to iOS 12 (and were likely being sold with iOS 12 installed, straight out of the box, even prior to this ruling), Apple has issued a statement making it clear that all iPhones remain available for purchase in China. I.e. This injunction did absolutely nothing at all.
As for what Qualcomm's patents are/were covering, MacRumors' article indicates they were used to "adjust and reformat the size and appearance of photos", for "managing applications using a touch screen when viewing and navigating apps", and a third patent of which has apparently already been invalidated in court.
The argument is that sleep is not the invention, it is a partial sleep until the device detects data that it should receive, at which point it wakes. Basically wake-on-lan except for radio. Transmitting, you know you need to power up, but receiving you do not. Hence, one could argue power states and a remote control as youâ(TM)ve described is an example of waking for received communication are prior art. But, that argument needs made in court to invalidate the patent.
Thirty four characters live here.
Is it a question of pride as opposed to being opposed to Qualcomm double dipping on patent fees, charging both the manufacturer and the integrator of the manufactured component?
Thirty four characters live here.
With cellular communications in particular:
1. The CDMA patents granted are fairly broad. It was very novel at the time so one can see why it was granted but it covers a very large swath of "communicating over airwaves".
2. The actual transmission of data through public frequency bands is regulated (in the US by the FCC but other countries have their equivalents). This cuts down on the degrees of freedom wireless protocols can have.
Did mobile radios not do this before 2011? Did we not used to have phones with small batteries and weeks of standby time?
Gee, I "power up" when I must transmit information to others. Receiving I can generally be in partial sleep at my desk but then "power up" to receive the )&(*^% information from that fellow that won't leave me alone. I've been doing this all my life that I can recall. I'm just glad this behavior wasn't obvious to anybody else...with a pulse.
While somewhere above someone posted that this may be a rehash of an old patent, If so the differentiation between an old patent and this one may need review under that pretext. Your implication that the idea of replicating a specific animistic behavior in a computer is fundamentally not patent worthy is just total garbage. The idea of making two computers talk to each-other was innovative as all hell, the idea of making a computer be able to see is innovative as all hell. The idea of making computers process natural language or reproduce themselves etc etc etc were all great ideas and foundational ideas that inspired whole industries. Your dismissal of this one for "reasons" is childish.
I wonder if this was the motivating factor for Apple creating the Xs and Xr?