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Apple and Qualcomm’s Billion-Dollar War Over an $18 Part

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Re: Apple and Qualcomm’s Billion-Dollar War Over an $18 Part

#71

Post by Domenic_S »

smm2000 wrote: post #45
dheelus wrote: post #31

An analogy for this in the real world would be tips for waiters. As a foreigner, I'm aghast at the tipping culture in the US but more importantly, I fail to understand why tips are calculated on a percentage basis. It is no more effort to bring me out a $60 steak than it is to bring me a $5 coffee. So why should I tip $12 for the steak and $1 for the coffee? To Apple's point, they want a "fixed" tip charge. But then…

Throughput, expectation of service and number of tables/waiter are very different for coffeeshop/casual diner and place that sells $60 steak. In casual restaurant you can expect one waiter per 8 tables compared to 4 tables/waiter in fine dining place. People easily take 2x time to eat the same amount of food in fine dining place compared to something cheaper. In fine dining place waiters are better trained/educated (…

If I go to Denny's and order a coffee, the waitress pours the coffee and stops by every so often to refill it. They get a $1 tip.

If I go to that same Denny's and order 4 Grand Slams, the waitress waits on the cooks, and then makes one trip to my table. They get a much higher tip for less work.

Re: Apple and Qualcomm’s Billion-Dollar War Over an $18 Part

#73

Post by tooltalk »

MBCook wrote: post #49
mkhalil wrote: post #25

I love battles when you can't really feel sorry for either side. As much as I or anyone hate patent trolls, one can't sit here and complain that a percentage of the value isn't a fair price to pay if one thinks it's okay for Apple to charge Music + App devs 30% to improve their OS + provide content for it's users.

App developers agreed to the 30%. Qualcomm agreed to FRAND pricing. But that’s not what they’re charging Apple. They broke an agreement. What Apple is doing doesn’t violate an agreement, whatever you think of it.

and Apple agreed to pay Qualcomm's FRAND rates, didn't it? Like Apple's 30% cut known to the public, Qualcomm's FRAND licensing rates are published time to time and Apple agreed to abide by it.

Apple pays according to the article about $10 per device, or 1.33% of the retail price. This is far below what Qualcomm is charging, 3% to 5%, and what most handset makers pay. Further the royalty Apple pays (indirectly) is based on Apple's manufacturer's build cost, not retail cost.

Re: Apple and Qualcomm’s Billion-Dollar War Over an $18 Part

#74

Post by greglindahl »

mcculley wrote: post #67
yaantc wrote: post #6

That's a very one-sided pro-Qualcomm piece. The big issue with Qualcomm IP practice is that they don't charge IPR on the modem function, but over the whole device. So put the same modem in a cheap phone, or in an expensive laptop, and the IPR will be very different. This is really charging IPR on a lot of value completely unrelated to the modem. Historically, the cellular/3GPP world was very phone centric. The specs…

>they don't charge IPR on the modem function, but over the whole device. Is this why there's no option for an LTE modem in a MacBook Pro?

It's much more cost-effective to have a mobile hotspot, because then you're only paying the Qualcomm tax on a minimal thing.

Re: Apple and Qualcomm’s Billion-Dollar War Over an $18 Part

#75

Post by admiralpumpkin »

danjoc wrote: post #69
yaantc wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This story is very Apple vs. QCOM, but I don't care much about this angle really. What I care about is the underlying question: is it ok to charge IPR on value added way outside the scope of the given IP? I don't think so. QCOM does so. Apple is against. So I'm just sympathetic with Apple position in this strong debate and that's it (I'm not even an Apple user). And I don't feel sorry for Apple. I feel sorry for all…

>Apple is against. In this case. Apple has a history of demanding extortionate patent licensing fees for incredibly obvious ideas. You seem to be missing the bigger picture. The attack on Qualcomm is against the company, not the patents. Qualcomm snapdragons are the only competitive ARM chips against Apple's A series. Apple is trying to destroy Qualcomm and monopolize the market. That's not going to help the little g…

You're not addressing the poster's point. Does makes sense for Apple to pay a % of total price of phone for one decreasingly relevant part?

Apple A series tech is destroying the Qualcomm's snapdragons just fine without any need for legalities.

Are you suggesting that Qualcomm is using its licensing fees to support an unprofitable Snapdragons? Overall a confusing argument.

Re: Apple and Qualcomm’s Billion-Dollar War Over an $18 Part

#76

Post by atka »

MBCook wrote: post #49
mkhalil wrote: post #25

I love battles when you can't really feel sorry for either side. As much as I or anyone hate patent trolls, one can't sit here and complain that a percentage of the value isn't a fair price to pay if one thinks it's okay for Apple to charge Music + App devs 30% to improve their OS + provide content for it's users.

App developers agreed to the 30%. Qualcomm agreed to FRAND pricing. But that’s not what they’re charging Apple. They broke an agreement. What Apple is doing doesn’t violate an agreement, whatever you think of it.

And FRAND doesn't mean anything. It just means fair reasonable and non discrimatory. If Qualcomm charges everyone the same then how is this not met.

Re: Apple and Qualcomm’s Billion-Dollar War Over an $18 Part

#77

Post by atka »

rgbrenner wrote: post #23
yoz-y wrote: post #11

Is it a common practice in other fields to charge a percentage of final product as a fee? To me it seems that while this can make sense to some extent there should be a cap. If I put a modem which uses Qualcomm IP in a car should I also pay 5% of the price?

A patent holder can charge whatever they want, or even refuse to allow anyone to license it. The difference is that Qualcomm agreed to FRAND (fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory) licensing terms in exchange for their patent being included in the standard. Once they got their patent in the standard, now they're saying they get to charge whatever they want. That's the problem. That wasn't the deal they and everyon…

There is nothing in FRAND that says what they can charge. They can charge whatever they want as long as it is fair reasonable and non discrimatory.

Re: Apple and Qualcomm’s Billion-Dollar War Over an $18 Part

#78

Post by alexandercrohde »

You guys are making this a really irrational, really emotional "Apple vs Qualcomm" issue. The root of the problem is not that.

The root of the problem is bad patent law. It really doesn't matter what apple does, it doesn't matter if their CEO eats babies, the merits of a patent are irrelevant to whether the company "feels like a baddy."

If you think apple has bad monopolistic practices in its app store, that only reinforces the fact that our system is anticompetitive, and that both Qualcomm should lose its patent as well as potential opening up of the IOS ecosystem.

Re: Apple and Qualcomm’s Billion-Dollar War Over an $18 Part

#79

Post by threeseed »

danjoc wrote: post #69
yaantc wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This story is very Apple vs. QCOM, but I don't care much about this angle really. What I care about is the underlying question: is it ok to charge IPR on value added way outside the scope of the given IP? I don't think so. QCOM does so. Apple is against. So I'm just sympathetic with Apple position in this strong debate and that's it (I'm not even an Apple user). And I don't feel sorry for Apple. I feel sorry for all…

>Apple is against. In this case. Apple has a history of demanding extortionate patent licensing fees for incredibly obvious ideas. You seem to be missing the bigger picture. The attack on Qualcomm is against the company, not the patents. Qualcomm snapdragons are the only competitive ARM chips against Apple's A series. Apple is trying to destroy Qualcomm and monopolize the market. That's not going to help the little g…

> Apple has a history of demanding extortionate patent licensing fees for incredibly obvious ideas

When ? I am only aware of one situation in their history i.e. Android where Apple has sought an ongoing royalty.

> Apple is trying to destroy Qualcomm and monopolize the market

What ? Apple is never going to sell their CPUs to their competitors. They are a product company not a components vendor so not sure what market you are referring to. Also Intel sells modem components as well.

Re: Apple and Qualcomm’s Billion-Dollar War Over an $18 Part

#80

Post by tooltalk »

yoz-y wrote: post #11

Is it a common practice in other fields to charge a percentage of final product as a fee? To me it seems that while this can make sense to some extent there should be a cap. If I put a modem which uses Qualcomm IP in a car should I also pay 5% of the price?

In this particular industry, it is. It depends on whether qualcomm's patented features "drive the market demand" for the finished goods.

So in mobile devices, Qualcomm's wireless patents do deservingly get per device royalty whereas, for automobiles, it would make no sense to use the same per device royalty.

On a somewhat unrelated note, Apple demanded the entire profit on per device basis for a couple of frivolous design infringement from Samsung and won a couple of years ago. This absurd, biased lower court ruling was overturned by the Supreme Court last year.

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