frac

gatorguy said:

carnegie said:

dangermouse2 said:

Wouldn't denying Apple access be the very definition of fraND violation?

Refusing to sell Apple chips (if that's what you're referring to, as that's the subject of the OP) wouldn't in itself be a FRAND violation.

However, refusing to sell Apple chips unless it agreed to unilateral licensing terms while at the same time refusing to license standard-essential patents (with proper pass-through rights) to your competitors in the chip supply space - such that Apple had little choice but to get certain chips from you - would be a FRAND violation. That would be especially true if the unilateral licensing terms you sought to impose were themselves non-FRAND in multiple ways - e.g., if you required the licensee to pay for licenses for patents they didn't want or need in order to get those they did want or need, if you refused to even identify which patents you were licensing to them, if you forced them to pay more than a fair rate based on your own SEPs contribution to the relevant standards, if you required that they cross license their own patents without fairly compensating them (even if it's just fair offsetting compensation), if you refused to even allow for a fair price determination process. Qualcomm is accused of doing all of those things and more.

Where are you finding these FRAND laws? That's one of the big licensing problems There are none.

As it's currently done it is typically defined in by-laws from the standards setting organizations themselves. It has been only somewhat recently that courts have tried to put some legal qualifications in there but most of those have stopped short of actually creating new case law. 

The European Commission has for instance tried to arrive at a definition, but so far has not done so to the best of my knowledge. "Fair" changes depending on whether you are a buyer or a seller. Getting all the parties to agree on a FRAND definition, even determining whose responsibility it will be to do so, is going to be a tough nut to crack. In the meantime there are no clear red lines. 
http://is.jrc.ec.europa.eu/pages/ISG/EURIPIDIS/documents/05.FRANDreport.pdf

And if you're looking for US specific guidance only this link lists just about everything done so far.:
http://www.allthingsfrand.com/letters-statements/regulatory-us/

And finally this is one of my regularly visited blogs, at least every couple of weeks or so. Various articles here at AI over the years have lead to an interest in staying familiar with patent licensing, particularly SEP's. This is one of a couple very good resources.
http://www.essentialpatentblog.com/

 My other go to is a subscription site, http://www.iam-media.com/Blog/

mattinoz said:

Bone conducting speaker would be cool as well. 

gatorguy said:

oh geez. . .
Another week and another patent infringement claim with almost no basis. Not a chance in Hades that the "inventor" ever considered a use in a messaging app. Dredging up old patents in the hope that some court and jury somewhere might be tricked into believing that the decade or older claims read on a new unanticipated technology. Gotta be a better way to deal with the silly ambulance-chasing via software patents. My thoughts? Dump most software patents as unpatentable material. 

jbdragon said:

lkrupp said:

AppleInsider said:

At the same time, the company is expected to detail plans to prevent future catastrophes -- something critical if it wants healthy sales of its upcoming flagship handset, the Galaxy S8.

Pffft! The Galaxy 8 will be hailed as the ultimate iPhone killer with no mention of battery issues and Samdroids will purchase them in droves.

Every year it's the iPhone killer, yet it never kills it. So nothing new.

sog35 said:

chadbag said:

sog35 said:

BULLSHIT

They changed the battery and it still blew up.

Did you read the article?  The problem lying with the battery does not mean that a specific battery brand was at fault.   If there was not enough space for the battery to expand, two similarly specced batteries from two manufacturers could both behave the same way.  

Did you read the article?

Samsung did not say it was not enough space. Go read the article again.

avon b7 said:

frac said:

avon b7 said:

Asking users to agree to the terms after having flashed up the licence in the middle of the setup process and via a checkbox, probably wouldn't get very far in the EU if someone legally challenged any of its terms.

You mean like the EU is prosecuting Eire and Apple for not complying with EU Membership T&Cs?

Ha. The EU isn't prosecuting Apple.

In my reference I was talking more along the lines of the recent EU legal ruling that forces some Spanish banks to return billions of euros to customers that were subjected to floor clauses. The floor clauses themselves were not singled out as ilegal but the way they were communicated to customers was seen as lacking transparency and clarity meaning it was not enough to have the clauses in the contract per se. The contracts, full of financial terminology, were aimed at  end users who had little or no experience in the field.

Although if someone had directly challenged the legality of floor clauses I'm sure they would have been considered ilegal all the same.