You're right that Google would love a cross-licensing agreement. It's what everyone does. Everyone except of course Apple who wants to be able to license IP from others, even non-FRAND, but never itself give out licenses.
Imagine the effect on business adoption if Microsoft had refused to license Exchange ActiveSync to Apple for the iPhone.
Microsoft didnt license ActiveSync from the good of their hearts - they chose to license ActiveSync to break RIMs dominance in enterprise communications and to sell their Exchange Server software. It's a different business model from what Apple is doing.
Microsoft didn't need to license ActiveSync. There was no government intervention to force them to tolerate use of their IP for any price. If Apple decides to change its business model in to a licensing one (rather unlikely), they could make that choice for themselves.
The government should not act like Apple's mum and force it to share its property. It owns the IP, it can decide what to do with it. Just like Microsoft had the freedom to decide independently.
Google didn't break any contractual FRAND pledges when they bought MMI. In fact, they stated that they would continue to honor MMI's original maximum of 2.25% for its FRAND patents.
Half-true. The rate was already set by Moto, who are the ones who broke the FRAND pledges. No doubt under direction of Google, as Motorola didn't have full legal standing and had to consult with Google regarding pending litigation and potential settlements (as stated in the merger agreement).
Regardless of the exact rate requested (if there was an exact rate), it is clear to anybody, including the ITC judge, that Motorola couldn't have expected Microsoft (or, by extension, Apple) to agree to those terms. Motorola doesn't have a single licensee under the terms it offered those two.
Despite Florian's spin on a subtopic that had nothing with the judge's finding that Apple had infringed Motorola's patents, neither the ITC nor the courts can set FRAND rates. The most that courts can do is rule that a rate is totally unreasonable.
That's why courts are staying out of the rate decisions so far. All they've been doing is preventing injunction attempts based on FRAND patents.
Not true. If the parties fail to reach a settlement, the court will decide on an appropriate royalty rate.
Note that Qualcomm gets 3.4% of a phone's price for its IP. MMI's maximum of 2.25% sounds reasonable in comparison, and can be as low as zero if you cross-license with them... a dealing that has been common between every other phone maker for almost two decades.
Apple came into a known playground and wants to change the rules to their own benefit. There's nothing wrong with that, but they cannot claim that they're being treated any differently than the other players.
Qualcomms terms are not only confidential (I don't know where you got that figure from), but
include Motorolas patents as part of their cross-licensing deal (which makes sense for Qualcomm because it's all about the low-level comms hardware). Not only that, but I doubt that the royalty base is the end price of the product (as FM pointed out, the end price includes lots that has nothing to do with the patents in question).
Qualcomms royalty is a total rate for all SEPs, including the cross-licensed ones. Nobody's won a cellular SEP infringement case against a Qualcomm baseband chip because they're all already covered. When you look at that - 3.4% for a license to thousands (all relevant) cellular SEPs from all companies that participated (hundreds), against 2.25% for a handful of patents from one company, it's obvious the rate is extortionate.
Apple aren't changing the rules; they're going by the letter of the law. It's google who are asking for special circumstances and exemptions to plunder the IP that Apple doesn't want to license.
