Apple Sues Motorola Over Licensing of Cellular Technology by Qualcomm

[gkpm]

I want my money to go to the company (Samsung) that brought the manufacturing here to the US. Not the company (Apple) that has a lack of respect for basic human right

I'm not sure Samsung is the right company for you to give your money then, after all they were found guilty of causing cancer on some of their employees in a Korean plant (and then denying it all):

http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/484347.html

Not the best human rights record.

Maybe you should research better. Please do post here if you find an electronics manufacturing company that is fully ethical and clean.

I'm still looking for one myself. Samsung certainly isn't.

 

[Kaibelf]

And I'm tired of hearing that myth

Even without the huge revenues of late, Apple has always had one of, if not the, lowest revenue to R&D ratios of any major electronics company.

The majority of Apple's huge profits are sitting overseas. Here in the US, the number of Apple developers has not appreciably increased due to huge profits, either.

Apple's R&D seems to be doing just fine, considering their competitors spend a tremendous amount of time trying to mimic their products OR figure out what they are creating. Also, Apple's overseas profits are from overseas sales, where they have already been taxed by the country of sale. Why should the US get any money from a product that was fabricated, shipped, and sold wholly abroad, as well as taxed abroad? Finally, exactly what business is it of yours how much Apple spends on R&D percentage-wise, or how many people they employ? Unless you run the company or really have anything to do with any business decisions that affect them, you're frankly in no position to say a thing.

 

[roasted]

Dear Lord, Apple. Flipping stop already. It's old. The horse died 12 years ago.

 

[KingJosh]

whoa whoa hold on everyone........... Oletros is not here yet.

 

[samcraig]

I enjoy all the armchair patent lawyers who all congregate on MacRumors.

The fact is - I would wager that no one here knows the specifics of Motorola's agreement with Qualcomm and whether or not the licensing of their tech included x, y or z.

So without knowing those details - all finger pointing is meaningless. All sides will be able to present their case to a judge with actual facts and details of that agreement.

 

[DeathChill]

I enjoy all the armchair patent lawyers who all congregate on MacRumors.

The fact is - I would wager that no one here knows the specifics of Motorola's agreement with Qualcomm and whether or not the licensing of their tech included x, y or z.

So without knowing those details - all finger pointing is meaningless. All sides will be able to present their case to a judge with actual facts and details of that agreement.

A very sensible post. Cheers.

 

[gkpm]

The fact is - I would wager that no one here knows the specifics of Motorola's agreement with Qualcomm and whether or not the licensing of their tech included x, y or z.

So without knowing those details - all finger pointing is meaningless. All sides will be able to present their case to a judge with actual facts and details of that agreement.

Actually we - well , some of us - do have most of the details, as they were revealed in the Wisconsin Court decision over the Motorola ITC case.

http://articles.law360.s3.amazonaws...0-de_seq_num-329-dm_id-3602496-doc_num-93.pdf

Includes details on the contested patents, Motorola's actions and even legal precedent relevant to this case.

It is 38 pages of mostly legalese, so reading is only really recommended to enthusiastic armchair lawyers

 

[shartypants]

Maybe Motorola should sue all the people that own iPhones! Seriously, I agree with Apple, if they buy a chip from some company, the patent stops there.

 

[MacCurry]

Sue Me Sue You Blues

In the words of the late great George Harrison:

You serve me
And I'll serve you
Swing your partners, all get screwed
Bring your lawyer
And I'll bring mine
Get together, and we could have
A bad time

Its affidavit swearing time
Sign it on the dotted line
Hold your Bible in your hand
Now all that's left is to
Find yourself a new band . . .

Were gonna play the sue me, sue
You blues
Were gonna play the sue me, sue
You blues

Hold the block on money flow
Move it into joint escrow
Court receiver, laughs, and thrills
But in the end we just pay those
Lawyers their bills

When you serve me
And I serve you
Swing your partners, all get screwed
Bring your lawyer
And I'll bring mine
Get together, and we could have
A bad time

Were gonna play the sue me, sue
You blues

Im tired of playing the
Sue me, sue you blues

 

[inkswamp]

So weird the way the landscape shifts in technology. Anyone else been a Mac user long enough to remember when Motorola was a core part of the Apple team? Times definitely change.

 

[richpjr]

I understand the need to protect intellectual property but this is bordering on lunacy. The cost of all this litigation, damages and royalties is coming out of your and my wallets. In the end, no matter who "wins" all of these various patent cases, we as consumers are the ones losing.

 

[KingJosh]

So weird the way the landscape shifts in technology. Anyone else been a Mac user long enough to remember when Motorola was a core part of the Apple team? Times definitely change.

been a mac user since 1992 never heard of motorola. enlighten me?

----------

I understand the need to protect intellectual property but this is bordering on lunacy. The cost of all this litigation, damages and royalties is coming out of your and my wallets. In the end, no matter who "wins" all of these various patent cases, we as consumers are the ones losing.

actually you are not thinking of the future enough. If Apple stops motorola from doing something in 10 years time Apple could have more marketshare equally a lot lot more money than they spent on lawyers 10 years prior. Apple thinks of the future while the majority of the rest don't. That is why Apple is so successful.

----------

Why are people in here crying and complaining over Apple suing all the time? It doesn't affect you. You shouldn't give a crap. Don't let it affect your daily activities jeez.

 

[Timzer]

You know what's disgusting and greedy? Asserting that only certain people should have jobs based on their country of origin. You know what's even more disgusting? Saying that foreign people should be wearing rags and working on a rice paddy (rather than in a manufacturing plant the way this country did 100 years ago) so that some suburban people can buy a second car to drive their spoiled kids to soccer practice. Also, Samsung? Really? Their CPU may be fabricated in Texas, but the rest of it's done in FAR worse Asian plants than Foxconn. Enjoy your phone.

By the way, did you know what before they came back from the dead, Apple made EVERYTHING in the USA? And it was so expensive, no one bought the products. Hence the dance with bankruptcy. Honestly. Pick up a book before you post so many blatant lies.

Wow. Really? Wearing rags and working on a rice paddy? Sounds disturbingly racist. So if Apple doesn't bring jobs to china, their destined to wearing rags and working on a rice paddy.
I suggest you take your own suggestions and pick up a book and educate yourself before your post with disturbing racist overtones. Wow, can't even believe you wrote that.

 

[blow45]

Instead of paying lawyers left right and center how about paying developers for a change to fix os x 10.7 vista? They can't get 50 people to work on resolution independence (cause they went with hdpi displays and we are all waiting for hdpi displays to finally materialize so we can cough up even more) but they can afford to be the biggest litigation machine in the industry...

[/COLOR]Why are people in here crying and complaining over Apple suing all the time? It doesn't affect you. You shouldn't give a crap. Don't let it affect your daily activities jeez.

Yeah well we are giving said crap because that's the only thing they seem to be doing effectively and with any consistent effort lately... other than that they have been crapping on their pro app line (final cut) with half arsed releases, messing up their core os and not developing it enough, pimping it via services like icloud that should have been standard on at least the previous version of the os, crapping on authorized resellers while they open one store after the other, while they sell one glary headache inducing imac after the other while not really giving a crap about coming up or funding someone to come up with a coating on the glass that "just works".

 

[bobenhaus]

And the suing cycle continues...

We the customers are losing with all these law suits. So dont think for a minute if you think these companies care for their customers because they dont. You will get your products but at a much higher price everytime their is a law suit. You can blame all them for these greedy acts. And dont want to hear people defending any of these companies because nobody here except the shareholders have a voice in these matters. I just hope the Govenerment doesnt step in because they will cause alot of problems.

 

[wikus]

Anyone else finding it difficult to respect Apple?

 

[adder7712]

Man this is just nuts already the lawyers the only true ones here making money...

Definitely.

Couldn't they just get along...

 

[kaizenmx]

Definitely.

Couldn't they just get along...

How the **** are companies suppose to get along when apple is constantly harassing other companies into submission?

If you can't beat them in fair game, sue the **** out of them.

 

[richpjr]

actually you are not thinking of the future enough. If Apple stops motorola from doing something in 10 years time Apple could have more marketshare equally a lot lot more money than they spent on lawyers 10 years prior. Apple thinks of the future while the majority of the rest don't. That is why Apple is so successful.

Apple is successful because they make very good products and have phenomenal marking that makes them the thing to have.

Why are people in here crying and complaining over Apple suing all the time? It doesn't affect you. You shouldn't give a crap. Don't let it affect your daily activities jeez.

You are missing my point - if you think it doesn't affect you, you aren't paying attention. Who do think is paying for the hundreds of millions of dollars that are being spent on these non-stop patent sue-fests? I can assure you that you are paying both now and will continue to do so in the future.

 

[Rodimus Prime]

So weird the way the landscape shifts in technology. Anyone else been a Mac user long enough to remember when Motorola was a core part of the Apple team? Times definitely change.

do not forget Apple has backstab more than one member of there core teams over the years.

I see this as more of Apple trying to avoid paying its dues.

 

[thewitt]

Most of you don't really understand how any of this works.

Big businesses don't "play nice," they push every limit they can to increase the value to their stockholders. It's not nasty, it's just business.

The verbiage around FRAND licenses is vague enough that Motorola feels they can try to squeeze Apple for another billion dollars. They would be failing their stick holders if they didn't try. Apple believes that a precedent has been long established for FRAND licensing costs, and refuse to pay. This means you go to court, which necessitates a law suit.

Should Apple simply roll over on this FRAND license, the 30 other patent holders in every phone would be lining up for their 2.5% slice...

Phones would double in price. None of us wants that...

 

[Wondercow]

I see this as more of Apple trying to avoid paying its dues.

So what you're saying is that you have no clue what this current suit is about.

Good to know.

You are missing my point - if you think it doesn't affect you, you aren't paying attention. Who do think is paying for the hundreds of millions of dollars that are being spent on these non-stop patent sue-fests? I can assure you that you are paying both now and will continue to do so in the future.

This, along with all the similar comments from other users, presumes that Apple would lower the prices of their products if they didn't pay for legal costs. I guarantee that if Apple had no litigation costs an iPad/Mac Pro/iMac/.... would cost the same as it does now.

 

[andy721]

Good for you Apple, Motorola seems to fail at everything, slow, bugs, slow, did I mention slow?
Even though Apple has Foxconn to worry about before they go under sooner or later, which is good then I could buy stocks at $10-60 when this happens I'd be set for life.

 

[the8thark]

----------

Need new heading - Front Page / Mac Blog / IOS Blog / God Awful Law Suit Crap /

Good Idea, Right??

Front Page / Mac Blog / IOS Blog / God Awful Law Suit Crap / We know better then Apple about release dates / Your daily dose of bias(ed reports)

Just fixed it up for you

 

[lilo777]

Motorola does have a point

Legalities aside (we do not really know enough details to understand the situation), consider the following. The end product that Motorola's patents enable is a mobile phone. As I understand, [F]RAND licenses typically cost about 2%. So, lets say this fee is charged on a $500 phone. That's $10 bucks per phone. Now, if Qualcomm put patented tech inside a chip that costs $50. All of a sudden Motorola's cut drops to $1. I suspect that the chips in question actually cost $5, which means that Motorola gets 10 cents per phone. Perhaps this makes sense for Apple but certainly not to Motorola and it makes mockery of the whole FRAND concept. Could Motorola charge $10 per chip? Maybe nut I am not sure that this would work for Qualcomm. So, this might be a new issue that arose because of the dramatic changes in the mobile industry. Perhaps the old ways (FRAND or the definition of "F" in it) don't make any sense anymore. I am sure they'll figure that out though In the mean time we all can enjoy the progress that the industry is experiencing.