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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.
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.
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.
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.