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ITC Rules Apple Infringed on Samsung Patents, Issues Cease and Desist Order for Older Apple Devices
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Right, and it makes sense, but it's a relatively new legal concept as applied to these particular patents.
Yet that is exactly how ETSI FRAND patents have been licensed for the past two decades. Knowing this is key to understanding the background of the cases.
In that way, Apple is not being treated any differently than other licensees.
On the contrary, it's Apple who WANTS to be treated differently. They do not want to pay per price like everyone else has for years. They do not want to play by the rules. They want to change the rules so they make more profit.
This is totally understandable, but it does not make them the victim.
Ok making more sense now. So really all it boils down to is did samsung offer a reasonable fair rate and was apple really willing to accept a reasonable and fair rate.
We'll find out at appeal if we don't get the obama veto hammer
I can understand the subsidy theory as it applies within one company: ie. Samsung has a portfolio of products ranging from low end to high end. The average Samsung pays per device is therefore in the middle.
I cannot quite see how the theory could be or should be applied across an industry in which most competing companies are losing money due to incompetence, and one or two are making some money due to the desirability of their high-end products. It's not Apple's fault that most phone makers can't come up with a profitable product and sell it without BOGOF offers. In fact, it is arguably down to Apple that customers expect more from their "phones" in the first place.
BTW Apple gets high margins precisely because they concentrate on one high-end product, and having actually sold what they had hoped, they continue to make it a further two years and continue to sell hundreds of millions more -- that is good business; it makes the per-unit-price for them come down. Why should this fact subsidize Apple's failing competitors?
Yes, it is perfectly understandable Apple wants to be treated differently. So, one question is whether, in fact, these are the "rules", and that Apple is, as you claim, breaking some kind of rule. I guess we shall see.
And not doing something just because it has been done that way for the last two decades is one of Apple's strengths. Yet, I doubt Apple is playing cavalier here (a trait more applicable to Samsung); Apple is familiar with SEP duties having its own patents as parts of H264 and H265 video, MPEG, Firewire, etc.
Of course the part is paid for and the license is paid on top, I never suggested otherwise; just that the negotiation is done around the part using the patent (as you seem to agree when you note that the deal between Apple and Qualcomm was at the manufacturing level, not the retail level).
Yet Samsung clearly wanted a percentage of retail price (and apparently on top of or apart from whatever was normally negotiated with Qualcomm). I am sure Apple never came out and said that a high-end Sony broadcast camera should subsidize the likes of $50 Flip cameras, trying as one member of the MPEG group to get 2% of $50,000 off Sony... as though a "reasonable" royalty rate is somewhere around 2% of the average cost (wholesale or otherwise) of all video cameras on the planet.
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Apple had the right to refuse, but that also means they'll have to pay more than an entity that cross-licenses.
For example, when Apple settled with Nokia, they reportedly cross-licensed some IP to get lower rates.
Apple asked for a rate without cross-licensing, then failed to enter into any arbitration or negotiation as ETSI rules suggest. So they got banned.
Not in the ETSI world. Please see the chart I posted.
It's not my idea. It's the way it's been done for over two decades.
Heck, before ETSI stepped in, back when Motorola owned more than half the GSM patents, they only had two license methods. Either you bought their hardware, or you cross-licensed everything. No monetary license was even possible.
Here are the ETSI FRAND licensing rules:
That's it. That's all the ETSI rules mention for rates.
What is not clear is if the final sentence refers only to other ETSI patents, or to all patents. However, it is public knowlege that if a licensee did not have related patents to share, they have often instead cross-licensed other types of IP (e.g manufacturing patents etc) to lower their rates.
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Ah yes, thank you
But my guess is that the cheaper iPad 2 will be replaced with the iPad 3 or 4 once the iPad 5 comes out. Kind of like what Apple did with the iPhone 3GS, and what they will do with the iPhone 4 when the iPhone 5S comes out. So really, none of these products will be for sale by Apple by the time this takes affect.
iPad 3 infringes... I suspect iPad mini will become the bottom end.
This thread is hilarious in parts, and tedious in whole. Regardless of whether some of Samsungs designs "look like" iOS designs or not, they're still using Android, not iOS... and Samsung's cut of Android is, at best, a very poorly executed joke. If your purchase knowledge is so sparse and ignorant as to think you own a device which is "as good as" an iPhone, just because it uses a few parts that look (garishly) similar... then I laugh, with a respectful, non-mocking "come ON now, seriously?" laughter.
In the UK, we have these young men called "boy racers" who take rust-bucket OLD, OLD cars, and spray paint them and put fibre glass body kits all over them, to attempt to fool themselves into thinking they're driving a premium sports car... can you see the analogy here?
I don't care if Android sells more - MacDonalds sell more burgers than a premium steak restaurant... but so what?
In the UK, we have these young men called "boy racers" who take rust-bucket OLD, OLD cars, and spray paint them and put fibre glass body kits all over them, to attempt to fool themselves into thinking they're driving a premium sports car... can you see the analogy here?
I don't care if Android sells more - MacDonalds sell more burgers than a premium steak restaurant... but so what?
Still with those stupid and wrong analogies?
Well, if you're happy thinking that your products is superior to others, the feel happy.
"Superior" != plain "better".
I don't think I, or any Apple user is "superior" to the user of another device, but yes - I DEFINITELY think Apple devices are better, to the point of being on a different plane to Android and Win7 entirely.
If they weren't better, they wouldn't cause such a frenzy of anticipation, because we all KNOW that something great is coming, denial or not.
To be fair - if EVERYONE followed Apple's model - the cell market wouldn't succeed because it would be leaving many people without the ability to own a phone.
You can't have every company making ONE phone and have it be high end. And priced as such.
Further - the one thing some people (not saying you) fails to really accept is that the iPhone would not exist had it not been for other manufacturers spending YEARS of R&D, $$, and creating varieties of phones. Nor the carriers who also helped "groom" customers into increased costs and services. Without everything that came before - Apple wouldn't have been successful.
If EVERYONE followed Apple's model, there would be a huge business opportunity for someone to sell low cost phones. That's why EVERYONE isn't following Apple's model, and your point is moot.
If EVERYONE followed Apple's model, there would be a huge business opportunity for someone to sell low cost phones. That's why EVERYONE isn't following Apple's model, and your point is moot.
Exactly my point. Did you see what comment I was REPLYING to?
By the way (and I admit I only learned this a few years back) - that expression (moot) is wrongly used.
http://litreactor.com/columns/20-common-grammar-mistakes-that-almost-everyone-gets-wrong
Moot
Contrary to common misuse, “moot” doesn’t imply something is superfluous. It means a subject is disputable or open to discussion. e.g., The idea that commercial zoning should be allowed in the residential neighborhood was a moot point for the council.
Samsung isnt wrong to defend itself no matter how hard you want to play the "two wrongs don't make a right" card. But most see right through that BS and recognize what you're really saying is "It's ok if apple does it" you might be able to fool yourself but you aren't fooling me.
Like i said, its very telling how you avoided my initial question to you. Speaks volumes.
No - that analogy is wrong.
More like
Apple some teachers that Samsung copied off their test.
Some of those teachers agree. Some don't. Based on the evidence and criteria.
Both Samsung and Apple continue to argue their position
That is one CASE.
Unrelated except it involves the same parties...
Samsung reported Apple to some teachers because Apple was using Samsung's pencil without paying the same or fair usage rate that other kids who used Samsung's pencil was. And when both parties tried to negotiate what was a fair fee, they couldn't reach a consensus - they they asked the teachers to help them decide.
But ultimately - analogies fail anyway. Because they are never the exact same as what is actually the issue. They may be SIMILAR - but are not the same.
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No.
That's it's historical use, from the free dictionary I find:
So is our discussion of moot - moot - or not moot?
Thanks for explaining it. Of course irrespective of which company wins or loses we, the consumer, always lose as these horrendously expensive lawsuits are funded by our hard-earned $$$/£££/€€€
Apple did try to play by the rules, it's Samsung that intentionally trapped Apple into the situation. A 2.4% rate for this one patent is purely trying to irritate Apple into a "you're crazy, I'm simply ignoring you" outrageous mood. And, Samsung's tactic worked well this time. It's a pity to see this type of evil tactics to play successful role, though.
You can easily argue the antagonism was the reverse. We really don't know. So rather than say Company X vs Company Y is evil - just accept that NEITHER company could reach an agreement.
The clear fact can be deducted very very easily with a very simple calculation -- if you apply a similar rate (2.5% for one patent) to all of the other patents involved in the phone, Apple would have to pay at least 250% of its revenue for the patents held by other companies.
If you aren't arguing that the suggested licensing rate is fair, then you are suggesting that, perhaps, Apple is right to not commit to that rate for a patent encumbered with FRAND (Fair, Reasonable, And Non-Discriminatory) licensing obligation.
Again, if the rate isn't fair, Samsung is violating the FRAND obligation it willingly took on when getting that patent included in the cellular standard. If that's the case, then Apple *is* playing by the rules.
I'm amazed by the people who can't seem to grasp that:
- Different countries have different laws. Different laws applied to the same facts, can (and should be expected to) produce different rulings.
- EU laws, and US laws differ. Often in significant ways.
- Thus, it is no surprise that EU law and US law produced different rulings when applied to the same facts.
Ok. But where in his post does he not grasp that. He simply stated that the EU courts didn't agree. That's pretty factual.