What's Reasonable to Qualcomm Isn't to Apple
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What's Reasonable to Qualcomm Isn't to Apple
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Re: What's Reasonable to Qualcomm Isn't to Apple
#2So... is obligatory patent licensing subject to patent exhaustion? If so, what prevents a 3rd party factory from building chips and licensing tech, then selling chips and becoming the only party to pay royalties, and only on the cost of the chips, rather than on the final product? Is there some kind of legal differentiation of patent exhaustion based on who the purchaser is?
Re: What's Reasonable to Qualcomm Isn't to Apple
#3So... is obligatory patent licensing subject to patent exhaustion? If so, what prevents a 3rd party factory from building chips and licensing tech, then selling chips and becoming the only party to pay royalties, and only on the cost of the chips, rather than on the final product? Is there some kind of legal differentiation of patent exhaustion based on who the purchaser is?
Not a lawyer but thats what i would do too.
Re: What's Reasonable to Qualcomm Isn't to Apple
#4So this article talks all about pricing, and how the case might affect the price of an iPhone, but gives no numbers.
Have to give it to them on mentioning 5G posturing though, which I think is what this is.
From another recent article (https://www.cnet.com/news/qualcomm-apple-iphone-patents-roya...):
In Apple's case, the iPhone maker pays Qualcomm's licensing fee through its manufacturers. Apple doesn't have a direct license of its own. The fee is based on the total value of the device ($650 in the case of the iPhone) versus the value of the chip (closer to $20), but it's capped at a certain level. Neither company has disclosed the limit, but it's lower than the actual $650 price of the iPhone.
Re: What's Reasonable to Qualcomm Isn't to Apple
#5Given how important standards are in the realm of computers, I think the degree of protection patents provide is ludicrous. Patents ostensibly exist to benefit society while allowing the inventor to benefit from their invention. I feel like in the digital world the balance has tipped too far in favor of the inventor.
If we look to the industrial revolution for example, we have the conversion of linear motion to reciprocating motion. This is an incredibly important development for getting useful work out of steam engines. The most common solution is the crank and flywheel, but when James Watt was designing his steam engines he found that the crank was patented by James Pickard. Rather than license the crank, he invented the Sun and Planet gear[1]. The Sun and Planet gear was less efficient than the crank, but it was a suitable workaround which allowed Watt's engines to be competitive.
When it comes to computers, you either have the ability to interact or you don't. If you don't have the right radio, you cannot build a cell phone. If you don't have the right codec, you cannot build a web browser. Functionally, these patents are effectively more like patenting the concept of changing linear motion into rotational motion than patenting a particular mechanism for doing so.
I'm glad Apple is forcing Qualcomm's hand on this one.
Re: What's Reasonable to Qualcomm Isn't to Apple
#6So this article talks all about pricing, and how the case might affect the price of an iPhone, but gives no numbers. Have to give it to them on mentioning 5G posturing though, which I think is what this is. From another recent article ( https://www.cnet.com/news/qualcomm-apple-iphone-patents-roya... ): In Apple's case, the iPhone maker pays Qualcomm's licensing fee through its manufacturers. Apple doesn't have a dire…
Here's another article that says the royalty is about $15 per phone.
http://fortune.com/2017/01/23/qualcomm-royalty-apple-under-s...
Re: What's Reasonable to Qualcomm Isn't to Apple
#7> There is pretty much no way that Qualcomm could ever get an injunction to stop sales of iPhones... Qualcomm is planning to ask the federal government to ban imports of iPhones. This is the technology equivalent of a Hail Mary pass.
It was unclear from the article why this is a Hail Mary, so I looked it up. It initially seemed to me that if Qualcomm offers Apple a licensing agreement, Apple agrees to it, and later decides not to adhere to the agreement, they should be able to seek injunctive relief. The relevant precedent is probably eBay Inc. v. MercExchange [1], which SCOTUS used to establish a four-factor test. Among the four are "that [the party seeking injunction] has suffered an irreparable injury;" and "that the public interest would not be disserved by a permanent injunction." Public can't live without that sweet new iPhone stuff ;) and QCOM can always get paid later.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EBay_Inc._v._MercExchange,_L.L....
[2] https://www.scribd.com/document/337216142/1-Apple-v-Qualcomm...
Re: What's Reasonable to Qualcomm Isn't to Apple
#8So... is obligatory patent licensing subject to patent exhaustion? If so, what prevents a 3rd party factory from building chips and licensing tech, then selling chips and becoming the only party to pay royalties, and only on the cost of the chips, rather than on the final product? Is there some kind of legal differentiation of patent exhaustion based on who the purchaser is?
>> what prevent a 3rd party factory from building chips and licensing tech ..?
Quallcom. they could dictate the licensing agreement such that the phone maker also has to license it.
Re: What's Reasonable to Qualcomm Isn't to Apple
#9Given how important standards are in the realm of computers, I think the degree of protection patents provide is ludicrous. Patents ostensibly exist to benefit society while allowing the inventor to benefit from their invention. I feel like in the digital world the balance has tipped too far in favor of the inventor. If we look to the industrial revolution for example, we have the conversion of linear motion to recip…
this is an excellent analogy!
Re: What's Reasonable to Qualcomm Isn't to Apple
#10Given how important standards are in the realm of computers, I think the degree of protection patents provide is ludicrous. Patents ostensibly exist to benefit society while allowing the inventor to benefit from their invention. I feel like in the digital world the balance has tipped too far in favor of the inventor. If we look to the industrial revolution for example, we have the conversion of linear motion to recip…
>Functionally, these patents are effectively more like patenting the concept of changing linear motion into rotational motion than patenting a particular mechanism for doing so.
And one thing is clear: if the industrial revolution had started 20 years later due to some over-broad patent on a whole class of devices, then today we would be lawless cavepeople without electricity.
I mean just think it through! Surely whatever incentives the patent system created - including for Watt, or, for that matter, the wright brothers, pales in comparison to the fact that as a species we came this close >If the hundred thousand year old history of science had been delayed by just twenty years, surely we would have lost it all. The fact that the industrial revolution happened under a broad patent system that produced Watt, the wright brothers, and others, is the purest coincidence.
If the patent regime had been even slightly broader, the twentieth century would have been one very long, very boring appendix to Archemedes' screw.
Thank God that it happened to be just right! And alas, that nothing has been invented in the digital domain since 1997, since, alas, this system simply does not work there. :( :( :(
Can you imagine if things had been invented since 1997?
Imagine if people could communicate or innovate without patents coming and beating them up like a school bully.
one can dream. . .
(Sorry for dripping with sarcasm, you're just so wrong I cannot express it in any other way. who cares if a few patents are granted which are too broad -- big deal. literally a twenty year wait solves that problem forever. the contract with society works.)