But most of Qualcomm customers already have an agreement wiht Samsung so therefore not discriminating. Remember Apple does not own patents that are part of the FRAND for or critical for 3G, and GSM. Most of those other company making cell phones do and as such have patent trading agreements in place. Apple is very new to the cell phone market and trying to side step paying any of the patents.
When the 3G3P group (the collective of companies whose IP made up the 3G standard) underwent scrutiny in the EU regarding its potentially anticompetitive nature, the group claimed that there would be a "Standard Royalty rate" for all licensees and a "Maximum Cumulative Royalty rate", and that to avoid accusations of price fixing, licensees could make bilateral agreements under FRAND terms to charge less than the maximum rates to recognize the IP co-licensees brought to the standard. The problem is that Samsung wanted to stop offering these licensing terms to Qualcomm, also a member of the 3G3P group, for any merchandise that was subsequently sold to Apple. Instead, Samsung wanted to establish its own bilateral agreement with Apple that included licensing fees equal to the entire "Maximum Cumulative Royalty rate" for only Samsung's portion of the 3G IP. Furthermore, Samsung wanted to base its calculation of the "Maximum Cumulative Royalty rate" on the entire cost of the iPhone, rather than just on the price of the broadband chip that featured Samsung's IP (why, for example, the value of Samsung's 3G patents used in the iPhone should be increased based on the cost of the phone's cameras, screen, GPS, and GPU, is beyond me). How is it that IP that's apparently worth pennies in a Galaxy S should cost $15 - $20 in an iPhone? Come on, if every member of a standards group wanted $20/phone for its IP, with about 20 members in a standards group, it would cost $400/phone for a new competitor to enter the market just to obtain the communications protocol IP. Talk about stifling competition!
Now I know that Apple's licensing offer to Samsung for its design patents was anything but reasonable. But then again, those patents were not part of a communications protocol, and were not subject to FRAND licensing. Samsung wants to have patents that are part of an agreed on communications protocol to be treated in the same manner as design patents that give each device its unique appearance and functionality. This defeats the purpose of FRAND licensing by creating an impassible barrier to any company that was not a major contributor to the standard, thereby excluding new players from the industry and limiting consumers' choices.
I was just looking at the major players' LTE patent portfolios, and was surprised to see how much LTE IP Samsung has. If Samsung is allowed (as the source quoted in this article suggests) to evade FRAND licensing for its LTE IP, then Apple is indeed in a great deal of trouble, because Samsung could make it impossible for Apple to produce any LTE device at a reasonable price. I'm sure you're not arguing in favor of this, right?
Edit: The more I look at it, the more I think that Apple's only chance to survive in the wireless device market is to reach a cross-licensing agreement with Samsung ASAP, unless Apple confirms that it can obtain LTE IP under (truly) FRAND terms. Samsung simply has far too much LTE IP for Apple to fight.
