Qualcomm wins preliminary China import ruling against some iPhone models • Hacker News Board

Re: Qualcomm wins preliminary China import ruling against some iPhone models

#31

Post by konschubert » Mon, Dec 10, 2018, 5:01 PM UTC

eganist wrote: post #30

ballenf wrote: post #13

So in some recent version of ios 12, Apple changed the way they resize photos and manage applications on screen to get around Qualcomm's patents. It would be fascinating to see just what features on which devices are missing due to patents as opposed to the manufacturer not wanting to do it. Sure, most of the time the features can be designed in a non-infringing way, but that takes additional resources that might mak…

That same argument could be levied against all patents more generally, and as a result, I don't think it really helps the anti-software-patent cause. Physical patents have been licensed for this reason (to avoid the r&d of alternative methods) since nearly the advent of patents.

The hard thing in software is not idea, but execution.

Patents that patent trivial ideas are nothing but roadblocks.

Edit: There are some ideas in software that were non-obvious. Algorithms and protocols. Those might make sense to be patent-able.

Re: Qualcomm wins preliminary China import ruling against some iPhone models

#32

Post by onetimemanytime » Mon, Dec 10, 2018, 5:11 PM UTC

ballenf wrote: post #13

So in some recent version of ios 12, Apple changed the way they resize photos and manage applications on screen to get around Qualcomm's patents. It would be fascinating to see just what features on which devices are missing due to patents as opposed to the manufacturer not wanting to do it. Sure, most of the time the features can be designed in a non-infringing way, but that takes additional resources that might mak…

You're missing the point by actually arguing the merits of the case, the ruling is in China. Politbuto decides the "Court" cases. USA messed with Huawei, China answered. Popcorn

Re: Qualcomm wins preliminary China import ruling against some iPhone models

#33

Post by whyfy » Mon, Dec 10, 2018, 5:21 PM UTC

ihuman wrote: post #15

Is there any details on the patents Apple violated?

I haven't found actual specifics, but a quick search on Google Patents reveal that Qualcomm has a similar one for the image control/resizing. https://patents.google.com/patent/US20140306903A1/en?q=appli...

Re: Qualcomm wins preliminary China import ruling against some iPhone models

#34

Post by onetimemanytime » Mon, Dec 10, 2018, 5:24 PM UTC

dis-sys wrote: post #24

enraged_camel wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they won because they wanted to retaliate against the USA arresting a top Huewei executive.

not every single thread on HN has to be politicized. Qualcomm picked these patents months ago, they filed a lawsuit by arguing that these patents are being used by Apple without licensing. This is enough to call these concerned patents "key patents". my post is all about a question I am interested in - what kind of reward a big name high tech company is going to reward you when you are the inventor of such key patent…

Do you really think that courts in China are independent? Yes, no? If no or maybe, then China warned USA, mess with us and APPL is going quite a bit down. And APPL is the first...

Re: Qualcomm wins preliminary China import ruling against some iPhone models

#35

Post by enraged_camel » Mon, Dec 10, 2018, 5:33 PM UTC

dis-sys wrote: post #24

enraged_camel wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they won because they wanted to retaliate against the USA arresting a top Huewei executive.

not every single thread on HN has to be politicized. Qualcomm picked these patents months ago, they filed a lawsuit by arguing that these patents are being used by Apple without licensing. This is enough to call these concerned patents "key patents". my post is all about a question I am interested in - what kind of reward a big name high tech company is going to reward you when you are the inventor of such key patent…

>>not every single thread on HN has to be politicized.

All this kvetching about politics on HN needs to stop. This court decision undeniably has a political component, and therefore must be discussed.

Technology rarely exists in a vacuum.

Re: Qualcomm wins preliminary China import ruling against some iPhone models

#36

Post by zackmorris » Mon, Dec 10, 2018, 5:34 PM UTC

Does anyone know if there is a software license that bans software patents? So for example if a large majority of open source projects adopted it on sites like GitHub, especially at the OS level, it would begin to squeeze out patented software. Maybe a clause for the ban could be added to the next version of the most commonly used software licenses.

My personal feeling on software patents is that nearly all algorithms have an optimal solution and that nearly everyone will arrive at those solutions with a little elbow grease. So software patents stifle innovation rather than encourage it. The worst part is that anyone, anywhere, can be put out of business or tied up in court indefinitely by software patents (so they represent an infinite risk to any business). The same is true for all information technologies like genetics and pharmaceuticals. In fact I would go as far as to say that the number one danger facing machine learning and artificial intelligence (and work towards a general solution to the problems facing humanity) is software patents.

I don't expect large corporations to make much progress in banning software patents, even when their failure to do so hurts their bottom lines like in this case with Apple and Qualcomm. The most we could hope for is a giant like Google to get such a large patent arsenal that they could act like a shield for member developers (via the threat of mutually assured destruction), or to reduce patent durations to something reasonable like 2-5 years.

I don't want to start a flame war, but what are the holes in my logic above? Is this something that can be hacked or will it require years of political and legal battles? Do globalization and multinational issues make the situation hopeless?

Re: Qualcomm wins preliminary China import ruling against some iPhone models

#37

Post by aey » Mon, Dec 10, 2018, 5:37 PM UTC

zackmorris wrote: post #36

Does anyone know if there is a software license that bans software patents? So for example if a large majority of open source projects adopted it on sites like GitHub, especially at the OS level, it would begin to squeeze out patented software. Maybe a clause for the ban could be added to the next version of the most commonly used software licenses. My personal feeling on software patents is that nearly all algorithm…

Apache 2.0 is pretty good. If the licensee sues for any patent infringement they loose all Apache 2.0 licenses in that product. But it is hard to defend against trolls that are not shipping any code themselves.

Re: Qualcomm wins preliminary China import ruling against some iPhone models

#38

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Dec 10, 2018, 5:43 PM UTC

onetimemanytime wrote: post #23

IMO: Trade war Courts in China are not independent, let's be honest. Hurting Apple, the crown jewel, is a warning to USA (even if Qualcomm is US based) Edit: also see Huawei CFO getting jailed etc etc. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-05/huawei-cf... China answered....with hundreds of billions in market cap for Apple.

[deleted]

Re: Qualcomm wins preliminary China import ruling against some iPhone models

#39

Post by yorwba » Mon, Dec 10, 2018, 5:54 PM UTC

onetimemanytime wrote: post #34

dis-sys wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

not every single thread on HN has to be politicized. Qualcomm picked these patents months ago, they filed a lawsuit by arguing that these patents are being used by Apple without licensing. This is enough to call these concerned patents "key patents". my post is all about a question I am interested in - what kind of reward a big name high tech company is going to reward you when you are the inventor of such key patent…

Do you really think that courts in China are independent? Yes, no? If no or maybe, then China warned USA, mess with us and APPL is going quite a bit down. And APPL is the first...

Apple goes down, Qualcomm goes up, why should the US government care which of two US companies wins a ruling in China?

Re: Qualcomm wins preliminary China import ruling against some iPhone models

#40

Post by cronix » Mon, Dec 10, 2018, 6:02 PM UTC

enraged_camel wrote: post #22

dis-sys wrote: post #9

Qualcomm got this win because of two patents relate to software. For their inventors, they are probably not working on Qualcomm's core business (licensing and modem), wondering what will happen to them? An email from their superiors saying "well done and thank you", a cash bonus maybe some extra RSU, a promotion or maybe nothing? Anyone has experience on this?

No, they won because they wanted to retaliate against the USA arresting a top Huewei executive.

That sounds obvious, but I kind of doubt it in this case. Arresting a citizen vs holding a piece of hardware up for sale (in one country) due to software issues that can (fairly easily) be corrected. It doesn't seem proportional. If it was a response, I think they would have gone further and be more proportional like they seem to with everything else.