Apple's bitter dispute with Qualcomm not expected to be resolved anytime soon

Posted:
in iPhone
Stock analysts are starting to chime in on the Apple and Qualcomm fight, with the fight will take at least another year with little impact on Apple's bottom line.




In a research note provided to AppleInsider on Friday, Amit Daryanani of RBC Capital Markets has looked into the matters surrounding the Qualcomm and Apple fight. While the matter is complex, involving several courts and governmental agencies, Daryanani believes that the short term financial risk to Apple is negligible, with the company not likely to see any financial impact for at least a year, if ever.

However, Daryanani called a Qualcomm threat to seek an import ban against the iPhone 7 "interesting," based on the "iPhone 8" design and construction timing. Daryanani believes that Apple is currently "finalizing design and component suppliers" for any new fall iPhones, and legal wrangling now may affect choices made by Apple.

On Thursday, Qualcomm says that it plans to file a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission to get iPhone and iPad models using Intel-provided modems blocked from import and sale. Allegedly, the Intel modem in some iPhone 7 family of devices violates six non-standards essential patents held by Qualcomm.

Any embargo that may take place wouldn't be immediate. USITC rulings generally take a year and a half or more, just based on investigation times and agency workloads. Additionally, a ban once awarded can be appealed, or vetoed by the President, so even if awarded by the agency, there is no guarantee that it will be enacted.

The lawsuit that started the battle was filed in January, with Apple accusing Qualcomm of unfair licensing terms. Apple claims that Qualcomm withheld nearly $1 billion in rebates in retaliation for participating in a South Korean antitrust investigation.

Apple alleges Qualcomm abuses its "monopoly power" of the mobile wireless chip market to skirt fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory (FRAND) patent commitments to charge customers exorbitant royalty rates. Qualcomm also restricts sales of chips to buyers who have agreed to license its patents, a practice Apple refers to as "double-dipping" in two different court filings.

Those accusations mirror certain claims addressed in a U.S. Federal Trade Commission antitrust lawsuit also lodged in January.

In an array of counter-complaints to the government and in several court cases, Qualcomm continues to assert that Apple is in breach of contract, and is further interfering by inducing electronics manufacturers to not pay. Qualcomm asserts that Apple has not suffered tangible injury, antitrust or otherwise, from Qualcomm's business practices.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 27
    adrayvenadrayven Posts: 460member
    Qualcomm really has been pushing it's luck.. With the FTC also filing it's own suite, I suspect Qualcomm is in a loosing battle.
    jbdragon
  • Reply 2 of 27
    mtbnutmtbnut Posts: 199member
    I wish Apple would just buy every company that gets in its way. They could, so they should. (That's a great credo for a CEO, by the way: "I can, so I will!")
  • Reply 3 of 27
    lkrupplkrupp Posts: 10,557member
    Then why the headline “iPhones May Be Banned from U.S.” being splattered all over the tech media universe? 
    bshankwatto_cobra
  • Reply 4 of 27
    Mike WuertheleMike Wuerthele Posts: 6,837administrator
    lkrupp said:
    Then why the headline “iPhones May Be Banned from U.S.” being splattered all over the tech media universe? 
    I suspect you already know the answer to that.
    jbdragonpscooter63bshank
  • Reply 5 of 27
    "Apple alleges Qualcomm abuses its "monopoly power" of the mobile wireless chip market to skirt fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory (FRAND) patent commitments to charge customers exorbitant royalty rates." Android devices that have that same Qualcomm LTE tech in it costs as little as $120, and by this I mean LTE-enabled devices from name-brand companies like LG, Motorola, and Samsung that have the Qualcomm CPU in addition to the Qualcomm modem. Or, which is more likely in the case of Samsung LTE tablets - use their own Exynos SOC and modems for which they have to license the standards from Qualcomm. Finally, check Qualcomm's revenues. They are less than $25 billion a year. And they made a lot of stuff - networking equipment, satellite equipment, software and services - in addition to making and licensing modems and CPUs. Considering that Apple sells 250 million smartphones a year, there is no way that Apple is paying Qualcomm very much per device. Remember: Samsung sells like 350 million smartphones a year, and most of those are with Qualcomm CPUs AND modems. In fact, nearly all of the 1.5 billion smartphones sold each year have Qualcomm tech, or has tech that was licensed from Qualcomm, particularly if MediaTek (the manufacturer for the hardware used in nearly all the cheap Chinese and Indian mobile devices) has to pay Qualcomm royalties too, and I would imagine that they do. (The MediaTek chips are cheaper than the Intel ones .. but the Intel ones are much better.) So Apple isn't paying Qualcomm a whole lot. $1 billion a year sounds like a ton, but works out to about $4 an iPhone in return for 2G/3G/LTE capability. By contrast, Apple demanded that Samsung pay them licensing fees of $50 per device over "trade dress" stuff like rounded corners and the shape of app icons. Hopefully Qualcomm's lawyers will remind the judge of that very fact, and ask Apple to explain whether LTE capability is more important to a modern smartphone than trade dress. They would have a hard time claiming so, now that the current and upcoming iPhones look a lot more like the Samsung Galaxy S8 than they do the iPhone 3GS that Apple wanted Samsung to pay $50 a device for the privilege of making devices that looked somewhat similar to.
  • Reply 6 of 27
    fmalloyfmalloy Posts: 105member
    Amazing the pure, naive adulation for All Things Apple. Apple can sue the hell out of anyone and everyone, but if someone does it to them, oh poor Apple the victim. Fanboys...smh...
  • Reply 7 of 27
    rotateleftbyterotateleftbyte Posts: 1,630member
    mtbnut said:
    I wish Apple would just buy every company that gets in its way. They could, so they should. (That's a great credo for a CEO, by the way: "I can, so I will!")
    The Number of Lawsuits that Apple would go up by an order of magnitude if they embarked on that course of action.

  • Reply 8 of 27
    rotateleftbyterotateleftbyte Posts: 1,630member
    fmalloy said:
    Amazing the pure, naive adulation for All Things Apple. Apple can sue the hell out of anyone and everyone, but if someone does it to them, oh poor Apple the victim. Fanboys...smh...
    Sometimes Apple deserved to be sued. somtimes, it is just another company wanting a big payday.
    A lot of suits are filed against Apple because it is Apple and they have really, really big pockets.
    In the case of QC, they are 'double dipping' which following from the USSC ruling on Lexmark printer Cartridges is a big no-no. Apple are IMHO really hoping applies to them and QC can't charge Apple a license fee based upon the retail price of the device that contains their IP.
    We shall just have to sit back, enjoy the popcorn and wait for something to happen.

    jbdragonmuthuk_vanalingam
  • Reply 9 of 27
    brucemcbrucemc Posts: 1,541member
    "Apple alleges Qualcomm abuses its "monopoly power" of the mobile wireless chip market to skirt fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory (FRAND) patent commitments to charge customers exorbitant royalty rates." Android devices that have that same Qualcomm LTE tech in it costs as little as $120, and by this I mean LTE-enabled devices from name-brand companies like LG, Motorola, and Samsung that have the Qualcomm CPU in addition to the Qualcomm modem. Or, which is more likely in the case of Samsung LTE tablets - use their own Exynos SOC and modems for which they have to license the standards from Qualcomm. Finally, check Qualcomm's revenues. They are less than $25 billion a year. And they made a lot of stuff - networking equipment, satellite equipment, software and services - in addition to making and licensing modems and CPUs. Considering that Apple sells 250 million smartphones a year, there is no way that Apple is paying Qualcomm very much per device. Remember: Samsung sells like 350 million smartphones a year, and most of those are with Qualcomm CPUs AND modems. In fact, nearly all of the 1.5 billion smartphones sold each year have Qualcomm tech, or has tech that was licensed from Qualcomm, particularly if MediaTek (the manufacturer for the hardware used in nearly all the cheap Chinese and Indian mobile devices) has to pay Qualcomm royalties too, and I would imagine that they do. (The MediaTek chips are cheaper than the Intel ones .. but the Intel ones are much better.) So Apple isn't paying Qualcomm a whole lot. $1 billion a year sounds like a ton, but works out to about $4 an iPhone in return for 2G/3G/LTE capability. By contrast, Apple demanded that Samsung pay them licensing fees of $50 per device over "trade dress" stuff like rounded corners and the shape of app icons. Hopefully Qualcomm's lawyers will remind the judge of that very fact, and ask Apple to explain whether LTE capability is more important to a modern smartphone than trade dress. They would have a hard time claiming so, now that the current and upcoming iPhones look a lot more like the Samsung Galaxy S8 than they do the iPhone 3GS that Apple wanted Samsung to pay $50 a device for the privilege of making devices that looked somewhat similar to.
    You should read more closely - the $1billion was "rebates that Qualcomm withheld from Apple".  Apple was getting those rebates by agreeing to only use Qualcomm modems.  So if Apple is getting $1B in rebates, you can be damn sure Apple was paying a lot more than that.

    Perhaps you should take your nonsense and poorly researched posts elsewhere...
    jbdragonpscooter63anantksundarambshankosmartormenajrdaven
  • Reply 10 of 27
    "Apple alleges Qualcomm abuses its "monopoly power" of the mobile wireless chip market to skirt fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory (FRAND) patent commitments to charge customers exorbitant royalty rates." Android devices that have that same Qualcomm LTE tech in it costs as little as $120, and by this I mean LTE-enabled devices from name-brand companies like LG, Motorola, and Samsung that have the Qualcomm CPU in addition to the Qualcomm modem. Or, which is more likely in the case of Samsung LTE tablets - use their own Exynos SOC and modems for which they have to license the standards from Qualcomm. Finally, check Qualcomm's revenues. They are less than $25 billion a year. And they made a lot of stuff - networking equipment, satellite equipment, software and services - in addition to making and licensing modems and CPUs. Considering that Apple sells 250 million smartphones a year, there is no way that Apple is paying Qualcomm very much per device. Remember: Samsung sells like 350 million smartphones a year, and most of those are with Qualcomm CPUs AND modems. In fact, nearly all of the 1.5 billion smartphones sold each year have Qualcomm tech, or has tech that was licensed from Qualcomm, particularly if MediaTek (the manufacturer for the hardware used in nearly all the cheap Chinese and Indian mobile devices) has to pay Qualcomm royalties too, and I would imagine that they do. (The MediaTek chips are cheaper than the Intel ones .. but the Intel ones are much better.) So Apple isn't paying Qualcomm a whole lot. $1 billion a year sounds like a ton, but works out to about $4 an iPhone in return for 2G/3G/LTE capability. By contrast, Apple demanded that Samsung pay them licensing fees of $50 per device over "trade dress" stuff like rounded corners and the shape of app icons. Hopefully Qualcomm's lawyers will remind the judge of that very fact, and ask Apple to explain whether LTE capability is more important to a modern smartphone than trade dress. They would have a hard time claiming so, now that the current and upcoming iPhones look a lot more like the Samsung Galaxy S8 than they do the iPhone 3GS that Apple wanted Samsung to pay $50 a device for the privilege of making devices that looked somewhat similar to.
    Reportedly apple  is paying qcom about $20 per iPhone which is a considerable amount.  This issue is complex, but qcom is or was getting paid royalties by the contract manufacturers and apple was paying in addition to this with some rebates supposedly.  To know what should be paid the whole concept of FRAND licensing comes into play.  I think that QCOM is true and fully screwed especially  in light of the recent Supreme Court decision on patent exhaustion.
    jbdragon
  • Reply 11 of 27
    fmalloy said:
    Amazing the pure, naive adulation for All Things Apple. Apple can sue the hell out of anyone and everyone, but if someone does it to them, oh poor Apple the victim. Fanboys...smh...
    Sometimes Apple deserved to be sued. somtimes, it is just another company wanting a big payday.
    A lot of suits are filed against Apple because it is Apple and they have really, really big pockets.
    In the case of QC, they are 'double dipping' which following from the USSC ruling on Lexmark printer Cartridges is a big no-no. Apple are IMHO really hoping applies to them and QC can't charge Apple a license fee based upon the retail price of the device that contains their IP.
    We shall just have to sit back, enjoy the popcorn and wait for something to happen.

    Is Qualcomm double-dipping with Apple but no one else, including companies whose devices cost a fraction of what Apple costs?
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 12 of 27
    brucemc said:
    "Apple alleges Qualcomm abuses its "monopoly power" of the mobile wireless chip market to skirt fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory (FRAND) patent commitments to charge customers exorbitant royalty rates." Android devices that have that same Qualcomm LTE tech in it costs as little as $120, and by this I mean LTE-enabled devices from name-brand companies like LG, Motorola, and Samsung that have the Qualcomm CPU in addition to the Qualcomm modem. Or, which is more likely in the case of Samsung LTE tablets - use their own Exynos SOC and modems for which they have to license the standards from Qualcomm. Finally, check Qualcomm's revenues. They are less than $25 billion a year. And they made a lot of stuff - networking equipment, satellite equipment, software and services - in addition to making and licensing modems and CPUs. Considering that Apple sells 250 million smartphones a year, there is no way that Apple is paying Qualcomm very much per device. Remember: Samsung sells like 350 million smartphones a year, and most of those are with Qualcomm CPUs AND modems. In fact, nearly all of the 1.5 billion smartphones sold each year have Qualcomm tech, or has tech that was licensed from Qualcomm, particularly if MediaTek (the manufacturer for the hardware used in nearly all the cheap Chinese and Indian mobile devices) has to pay Qualcomm royalties too, and I would imagine that they do. (The MediaTek chips are cheaper than the Intel ones .. but the Intel ones are much better.) So Apple isn't paying Qualcomm a whole lot. $1 billion a year sounds like a ton, but works out to about $4 an iPhone in return for 2G/3G/LTE capability. By contrast, Apple demanded that Samsung pay them licensing fees of $50 per device over "trade dress" stuff like rounded corners and the shape of app icons. Hopefully Qualcomm's lawyers will remind the judge of that very fact, and ask Apple to explain whether LTE capability is more important to a modern smartphone than trade dress. They would have a hard time claiming so, now that the current and upcoming iPhones look a lot more like the Samsung Galaxy S8 than they do the iPhone 3GS that Apple wanted Samsung to pay $50 a device for the privilege of making devices that looked somewhat similar to.
    You should read more closely - the $1billion was "rebates that Qualcomm withheld from Apple".  Apple was getting those rebates by agreeing to only use Qualcomm modems.  So if Apple is getting $1B in rebates, you can be damn sure Apple was paying a lot more than that.

    Perhaps you should take your nonsense and poorly researched posts elsewhere...
    Yet out of everything I stated only the $1 billion part was wrong. You are just someone who doesn't like differing opinions. But I would like to hear your opinion over Apple demanding $50 per device from Samsung because of rounded corners and icon shapes in comparison to what Qualcomm wants for the technology that allows a smartphone to actually be a smartphone in the first place. You could pack all the horsepower in the Ax chips that you want, and it wouldn't be much good if your data connection was limited to 1G analog signals would it? And by the way ... Apple was sued for patent infringement over their ARM designs for the Ax chips by the University of Wisconsin ... and lost and had to pay up big. So yeah, I guess that is why you would rather I comment elsewhere, right?
  • Reply 13 of 27
    thrangthrang Posts: 1,005member
    brucemc said:
    "Apple alleges Qualcomm abuses its "monopoly power" of the mobile wireless chip market to skirt fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory (FRAND) patent commitments to charge customers exorbitant royalty rates." Android devices that have that same Qualcomm LTE tech in it costs as little as $120, and by this I mean LTE-enabled devices from name-brand companies like LG, Motorola, and Samsung that have the Qualcomm CPU in addition to the Qualcomm modem. Or, which is more likely in the case of Samsung LTE tablets - use their own Exynos SOC and modems for which they have to license the standards from Qualcomm. Finally, check Qualcomm's revenues. They are less than $25 billion a year. And they made a lot of stuff - networking equipment, satellite equipment, software and services - in addition to making and licensing modems and CPUs. Considering that Apple sells 250 million smartphones a year, there is no way that Apple is paying Qualcomm very much per device. Remember: Samsung sells like 350 million smartphones a year, and most of those are with Qualcomm CPUs AND modems. In fact, nearly all of the 1.5 billion smartphones sold each year have Qualcomm tech, or has tech that was licensed from Qualcomm, particularly if MediaTek (the manufacturer for the hardware used in nearly all the cheap Chinese and Indian mobile devices) has to pay Qualcomm royalties too, and I would imagine that they do. (The MediaTek chips are cheaper than the Intel ones .. but the Intel ones are much better.) So Apple isn't paying Qualcomm a whole lot. $1 billion a year sounds like a ton, but works out to about $4 an iPhone in return for 2G/3G/LTE capability. By contrast, Apple demanded that Samsung pay them licensing fees of $50 per device over "trade dress" stuff like rounded corners and the shape of app icons. Hopefully Qualcomm's lawyers will remind the judge of that very fact, and ask Apple to explain whether LTE capability is more important to a modern smartphone than trade dress. They would have a hard time claiming so, now that the current and upcoming iPhones look a lot more like the Samsung Galaxy S8 than they do the iPhone 3GS that Apple wanted Samsung to pay $50 a device for the privilege of making devices that looked somewhat similar to.
    You should read more closely - the $1billion was "rebates that Qualcomm withheld from Apple".  Apple was getting those rebates by agreeing to only use Qualcomm modems.  So if Apple is getting $1B in rebates, you can be damn sure Apple was paying a lot more than that.

    Perhaps you should take your nonsense and poorly researched posts elsewhere...
    Yet out of everything I stated only the $1 billion part was wrong. You are just someone who doesn't like differing opinions. But I would like to hear your opinion over Apple demanding $50 per device from Samsung because of rounded corners and icon shapes in comparison to what Qualcomm wants for the technology that allows a smartphone to actually be a smartphone in the first place. You could pack all the horsepower in the Ax chips that you want, and it wouldn't be much good if your data connection was limited to 1G analog signals would it? And by the way ... Apple was sued for patent infringement over their ARM designs for the Ax chips by the University of Wisconsin ... and lost and had to pay up big. So yeah, I guess that is why you would rather I comment elsewhere, right?

    One look at Samsung smartphones before and after the iPhone tells you how systemic the look and feel theft was.
    jbdragonanantksundarambshankwatto_cobradaven
  • Reply 14 of 27
    "Apple alleges Qualcomm abuses its "monopoly power" of the mobile wireless chip market to skirt fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory (FRAND) patent commitments to charge customers exorbitant royalty rates." Android devices that have that same Qualcomm LTE tech in it costs as little as $120, and by this I mean LTE-enabled devices from name-brand companies like LG, Motorola, and Samsung that have the Qualcomm CPU in addition to the Qualcomm modem. Or, which is more likely in the case of Samsung LTE tablets - use their own Exynos SOC and modems for which they have to license the standards from Qualcomm. Finally, check Qualcomm's revenues. They are less than $25 billion a year. And they made a lot of stuff - networking equipment, satellite equipment, software and services - in addition to making and licensing modems and CPUs. Considering that Apple sells 250 million smartphones a year, there is no way that Apple is paying Qualcomm very much per device. Remember: Samsung sells like 350 million smartphones a year, and most of those are with Qualcomm CPUs AND modems. In fact, nearly all of the 1.5 billion smartphones sold each year have Qualcomm tech, or has tech that was licensed from Qualcomm, particularly if MediaTek (the manufacturer for the hardware used in nearly all the cheap Chinese and Indian mobile devices) has to pay Qualcomm royalties too, and I would imagine that they do. (The MediaTek chips are cheaper than the Intel ones .. but the Intel ones are much better.) So Apple isn't paying Qualcomm a whole lot. $1 billion a year sounds like a ton, but works out to about $4 an iPhone in return for 2G/3G/LTE capability. By contrast, Apple demanded that Samsung pay them licensing fees of $50 per device over "trade dress" stuff like rounded corners and the shape of app icons. Hopefully Qualcomm's lawyers will remind the judge of that very fact, and ask Apple to explain whether LTE capability is more important to a modern smartphone than trade dress. They would have a hard time claiming so, now that the current and upcoming iPhones look a lot more like the Samsung Galaxy S8 than they do the iPhone 3GS that Apple wanted Samsung to pay $50 a device for the privilege of making devices that looked somewhat similar to.
    Reportedly apple  is paying qcom about $20 per iPhone which is a considerable amount.  This issue is complex, but qcom is or was getting paid royalties by the contract manufacturers and apple was paying in addition to this with some rebates supposedly.  To know what should be paid the whole concept of FRAND licensing comes into play.  I think that QCOM is true and fully screwed especially  in light of the recent Supreme Court decision on patent exhaustion.
    It is curious. $20 per iPhone when a Moto G4 that has a Qualcomm SOC and a Qualcomm modem can be had for $149? I guess Qualcomm is charging more if the device costs more? If that be the case, $20 to Motorola means that they can no longer make and sell a quality device for $149. $20 off a $650 iPhone 7 on the other hand ... it is easy to see Qualcomm's point there even if you disagree with it because without 3G and LTE speeds far fewer people pay $650 for an iPhone.

    Apple sells 250 million smartphones a year. At $20 a pop we are talking $5 billion per annum. That would mean that Apple alone is responsible for 1/5 to 1/4 of Qualcomm's $20-$25 billion in annual revenue. Which is hard to fathom when most of the 1.2 billion Android devices that get sold each year have the SOC too and not just the modem, devices from the $850 Galaxy S8+ at the high end to the ZTE ZMax Pro, which is the cheapest device with Qualcomm chips ($99) at the low end. And - as mentioned earlier - Qualcomm sells many more things than smartphone chips.

    But considering that Qualcomm would still have 75% to 80% of their business even if you are right about the $20 per device Apple wins a complete victory and then abandons them entirely, then under no scenario are they "screwed." 1.2 billion Android devices annually - and they make more than smartphone chips - remember? And that is the worst case scenario. The far more likely scenario is Apple gaining a partial victory where they are paying Qualcomm about half what they are now, and Apple remaining with Qualcomm because they do, in fact, make the best chips. If you want gigabit LTE, for instance, Qualcomm is the only game in town right now. And gigabit LTE isn't even 5G. Who knows how long it will take before Intel or whoever else competes with Qualcomm can develop support for that.

    So Apple will likely decide the same thing with Qualcomm as they did with Samsung concerning components: not liking them much but realizing they are better off with them than without them.
    bshank
  • Reply 15 of 27
    anantksundaramanantksundaram Posts: 20,402member
    mtbnut said:
     (That's a great credo for a CEO, by the way: "I can, so I will!")
    Yikes. The possibilities for why it's a disastrous credo for a company -- or a person -- are endless. It's a good thing you're not a CEO. 
  • Reply 16 of 27
    foggyhillfoggyhill Posts: 4,767member
    "Apple alleges Qualcomm abuses its "monopoly power" of the mobile wireless chip market to skirt fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory (FRAND) patent commitments to charge customers exorbitant royalty rates." Android devices that have that same Qualcomm LTE tech in it costs as little as $120, and by this I mean LTE-enabled devices from name-brand companies like LG, Motorola, and Samsung that have the Qualcomm CPU in addition to the Qualcomm modem. Or, which is more likely in the case of Samsung LTE tablets - use their own Exynos SOC and modems for which they have to license the standards from Qualcomm. Finally, check Qualcomm's revenues. They are less than $25 billion a year. And they made a lot of stuff - networking equipment, satellite equipment, software and services - in addition to making and licensing modems and CPUs. Considering that Apple sells 250 million smartphones a year, there is no way that Apple is paying Qualcomm very much per device. Remember: Samsung sells like 350 million smartphones a year, and most of those are with Qualcomm CPUs AND modems. In fact, nearly all of the 1.5 billion smartphones sold each year have Qualcomm tech, or has tech that was licensed from Qualcomm, particularly if MediaTek (the manufacturer for the hardware used in nearly all the cheap Chinese and Indian mobile devices) has to pay Qualcomm royalties too, and I would imagine that they do. (The MediaTek chips are cheaper than the Intel ones .. but the Intel ones are much better.) So Apple isn't paying Qualcomm a whole lot. $1 billion a year sounds like a ton, but works out to about $4 an iPhone in return for 2G/3G/LTE capability. By contrast, Apple demanded that Samsung pay them licensing fees of $50 per device over "trade dress" stuff like rounded corners and the shape of app icons. Hopefully Qualcomm's lawyers will remind the judge of that very fact, and ask Apple to explain whether LTE capability is more important to a modern smartphone than trade dress. They would have a hard time claiming so, now that the current and upcoming iPhones look a lot more like the Samsung Galaxy S8 than they do the iPhone 3GS that Apple wanted Samsung to pay $50 a device for the privilege of making devices that looked somewhat similar to.
    What's your fracking point, trade dress was criticsl to the end user buying their phone and not the iPhone and this thing is not. Got that. Get a clue. 
    Its a patent for some standard ip that's in every phone, it does not provide a competitive advantage to exist or not. 

    Im sure you know all that but you like to play the. Oth sides fallacy just like most desingenious throlls
    edited July 2017 watto_cobra
  • Reply 17 of 27
    Yet out of everything I stated only the $1 billion part was wrong. You are just someone who doesn't like differing opinions. But I would like to hear your opinion over Apple demanding $50 per device from Samsung because of rounded corners and icon shapes in comparison to what Qualcomm wants for the technology that allows a smartphone to actually be a smartphone in the first place. You could pack all the horsepower in the Ax chips that you want, and it wouldn't be much good if your data connection was limited to 1G analog signals would it? And by the way ... Apple was sued for patent infringement over their ARM designs for the Ax chips by the University of Wisconsin ... and lost and had to pay up big. So yeah, I guess that is why you would rather I comment elsewhere, right?

    "the technology that allows a smartphone to actually be a smartphone in the first place":
    Exactly, that is called an SEP. Apple has paid (notice, "has paid"), for something that every phone has, however cheap or expensive that phone may be. 
    iPhones don't sell because they can make a phone call. Qualcomm's tech is non-differentiating, it is a "commodity" that has to be used by all phones. 
    And, arguably, Apple has paid twice.

    By contrast, Samsung (which had not paid for alleged non-SEP patent infringement) was being sued for making an obvious pivot and selling phones on the basis of their similarity to the iPhone.

    So, there is your difference. (And I think it was you to whom I responded similarly in the last article about this subject).

    Apple had been paying what Qualcomm asked, for years. This whole thing started, because Qualcomm withheld a promised rebate following Apple's cooperation with an inquest into Qualcomm's practices! Apple initially asked for what Qualcomm was supposed to have reimbursed. Qualcomm has escalated this from there. And, this isn't just Apple -- it's numerous companies and governmental bodies looking at Qualcomm.


    teejay2012tmaywatto_cobrapscooter63bshank
  • Reply 18 of 27
    teejay2012teejay2012 Posts: 342member
    fmalloy said:
    Amazing the pure, naive adulation for All Things Apple. Apple can sue the hell out of anyone and everyone, but if someone does it to them, oh poor Apple the victim. Fanboys...smh...
    You did notice the sign when you came in right. This is an Apple site.
    Perhaps you were looking for the "five minute argument room"?
    I think most of us are waiting for the details of the case, but word around is that Qualcomm is the bad guy here.
    Please close the door on your way out and have a nice weekend.
    brucemcfracwatto_cobrapscooter63muthuk_vanalingam
  • Reply 19 of 27
    jcs2305jcs2305 Posts: 1,336member
    fmalloy said:
    Amazing the pure, naive adulation for All Things Apple. Apple can sue the hell out of anyone and everyone, but if someone does it to them, oh poor Apple the victim. Fanboys...smh...
    So you come to an Applecentric site to call out fanboys?! You need a grip and a life... sMh. 🤦🏽‍♂️

    You ignorantly and obviously have zero clue how many ridiculous lawsuits are thrown at Apple year after year. What's actually amazing are the lengths that Samsung kids paid or otherwise to try defend, deflect and whatever else they feel necessary in order to throw shade at Apple. It's actually both comical and sad. 
    watto_cobramuthuk_vanalingam
  • Reply 20 of 27
    Herbivore2Herbivore2 Posts: 367member
    Based on all of the lost cases that QCOM has suffered, their business plan and licensing model is considered abusive. In each case, the company has been fined to the tune of nearly a billion dollars. 

    There's the China case: 

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/qualcomm-settles-china-probe-1423518143

    There's the Korean case:

    http://reuters.com/article/idUSKBN14H062

    There's the binding arbitration with Blackberry also finding against QCOM to the tune of nearly a billion dollars:

    https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/04/qualcomm-loses-legal-battle-with-blackberry-must-pay-815m/

    QCOM is unable to appeal the Blackberry fine either. 

    The US FTC has also initiated a lawsuit against QCOM for its abusive practices along with Apple. Given the trends, QCOM is the one who is in trouble. Intel and Samsung have both filed Amicus briefs in support of Apple also. 

    QCOM has abused Samsung pretty heavily also:

    https://marketexclusive.com/qualcomm-inc-nasdaqqcom-denies-samsung-electronics-co-ltd-krx005930s-sale-exynos-chipsets-manufacturers/2017/03/

    I am going to dispute QCOM as being the best in the industry with respect to cellular baseband technology. The Exynos 7270 chip in the Gear S3 line of smartwatches exceeds the capabilities of the Snapdragon wear 2100 by a considerable margin. It is very clear that Samsung is able to exceed what Qualcomm is producing. Apple and Intel's partnership will eventually achieve superiority also. For right now, however, Samsung's Exynos SOCs with integrated modem are much better than the top of the line Snapdragons. I don't want to hear arguments regarding pure performance in which the two CPUs are nearly equal for short term bursts. The Exynos runs much cooler and returns superior battery life. Were it not for QCOM's abuses, the Exynos would have already achieved a dominant market position. 

    So much for QCOM competing on a level playing field. And they aren't exactly on friendly terms with Samsung either. 

    It's going to matter very little as Samsung and Apple are taking control of other critical hardware technologies that they can use to sufficiently differentiate their products from the rest of the industry that they are going to end up in dominant positions anyhow. Apple is just accelerating the process. And it is obvious QCOM's licensing is considered abusive. That has been a consistent trend given the number of times QCOM has already lost in the courts. 

    What QCOM is doing amounts to issuing threats in an attempt to bully Apple to capitulate. It's not going to work. 
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