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If I understand right, it does seem absurd that Qualcomm gets a percentage of the device’s sale, since no matter what patents they hold, they have nothing to do with the cost of the components or the price people are willing to pay for the final product. No wonder Apple started making their own SOCs years ago. It’s probably what got this feud started.

Right... If I buy the product, why pay royalties on top of the purchase price?
Take one or the other one, but don't try to double-dip.
 
When I visit San Diego (home of Qualcomm), there are billboards and radio ads going on and on about how important Qualcomm is to cellular communications and that we should be supporting them in all they do....
They sponsor a bunch of podcasts now too. I cringe every time they read the ad.
 
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Qualcomm has been wrong from the start and continues to shame themselves in the public light.
 
This is fallout from Apple's ongoing multi-year strategy to gain control over crucial components of the iPhone and iPad and to distinguish Apple components from Android components. The winner will be Apple even if it pays billions to settle this dispute. The loser will be QualComm as it loses an extremely valuable customer. Interestingly, Tech Insights tore down the Apple Watch Series 3 and QualComm's Snapdragon X7 LTE Modem lies within.
 
It really feels like Qualcomm is playing the long game here and working on building a victim reputation. That company has been doing quite a bit of sponsoring of Android related forums, podcasts, and appears to be attempting to gain a fan following.

What’s interesting, is that Qualcomm and Apple are both linked in the sense of using ARMv8-A instruction sets, yet Apple appears to be doing a touch better with getting speed out of their spec silicon lately.

Quietly hoping Apple + Google work together so the Pixel 2 uses an A12, though, not sure that it would be optimized for Android, so it is a meaningless pipe dream ;) .
 
According to Qualcomm, the lawsuits are based on three non-standard essential patents covering power management and the Force Touch technology that Apple uses in its touch screens.

Force Touch is a technology developed by Apple Inc
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_Touch

Android has "force touch" since 2009. The amount of sensitivity depends on the phone.

https://developer.android.com/reference/android/view/MotionEvent.html#getPressure()

The API for "force touch" has been available since Android 1.0, but it only became useful in API level 5 (2009). Why does android not have wider implementation of "force touch"? Because it sucks UI wise, the only time i use it on iPhone is when i'm trying to delete apps and end up in force touch limbo.
 
Apple lost all of its claims against Samsung in Germany and got sanctioned in the UK for lying and disobeying the court order in the UK. It eventually dropped all non-US lawsuits; yet Apple prevailed in the US. Obama even reversed a legal defeat, Apple's loss at ITC.

We are not Zimbabwe, South Korea or Taiwan -- anything can happen.

... anything but Apple being allowed to be defeated in court.
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If I may correct you there... Apple creates over a million jobs there... not just hundreds of thousands.

... and what jobs that are! Jobs so horrible and demeaning that employees rather off themselves than continue existing... but Apple even took that away from them (with their suicide nets).

Oh well. Who cares, really. Timmy needs a new yacht!
 
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Android has "force touch" since 2009. The amount of sensitivity depends on the phone.

https://developer.android.com/reference/android/view/MotionEvent.html#getPressure()

The API for "force touch" has been available since Android 1.0, but it only became useful in API level 5 (2009). Why does android not have wider implementation of "force touch"? Because it sucks UI wise, the only time i use it on iPhone is when i'm trying to delete apps and end up in force touch limbo.

No they didn’t. They don’t measure actual force - they “estimate” it based on the size of your finger on the screen (harder you press the larger the surface area your finger makes).

The original idea behind this API was for resistive touchscreens, which were in wide use just before the original iPhone came out.

The reason Android doesn’t use it is because it requires extra hardware to implement properly. How can Google integrate force touch in their OS when they know most Android devices won’t ship with the required hardware? It’ll be another layer of fragmentation.
 
Apple stopped paying licensing fees to Qualcomm at that time, as did Apple suppliers. Apple maintains that Qualcomm charges excessive licensing fees by requesting a percentage of an iPhone's entire value, while Qualcomm says its technology is "at the heart of every iPhone."

Apple never directly paid licensing fees, since they instead took advantage of the license that the factories had with Qualcomm.

Which is also why it's misleading to say that it was a percentage of the iPhone's entire value, unless you also point out that the value in question is what Foxconn charges Apple... somewhere between $200-300. Which is hundreds of dollars less than Apple sells the phones for.

China will never do something that hurts their manufacturing sector. Specially from a product them employs hundreds of thousands there.

Recently the Chinese NDRC (National Development and Reform Commission) ruled that phones sold in China must pay Qualcomm according to a percentage of their wholesale value. We're talking about China here, who basically does anything they wish. So they've already ruled that SEP patents must be paid that way. A non-SEP is likely to have far fewer boundaries.

This lawsuit is just a side effect of Qualcomm punishing Apple for having the balls to fight Qualcomm's unfair excessive requirement of a piece of each device sale on top of the already paid license fees of the components included in the device.

That is utterly incorrect. Modem chips do not come with license fees paid. Phone makers pay separately depending on how many phones they make and what features they use.

Is that the same legal argument that has caused Qualcomm to be fined or lose arbitration 4 times around the world for a total of over $3 billion? Or is this a different legal argument?

No. That's another common misconception. Qualcomm was dinged for not giving promised rebates, for requiring full licenses instead of partial ones, and not giving as much credit for cross licensing as people wanted.

They were not dinged for the way they charge. Remember, Nokia, LG, Sony, Ericsson, Motorola, and almost everyone else who created the cellular standards that Apple has made billions from, all charge a percentage.

Apple's arguments are not about being charged unfairly. Heck, Apple themselves charge by percentage for things like apps, adapters, even Apple Pay to banks, not to mention wanting a percentage of profits from Samsung. Cook simply needs to continue to make more profit, and if he can get royalties down, he can do that.
 



Qualcomm recently filed lawsuits in China in an attempt to stop Apple from selling and manufacturing iPhones in the country, reports Bloomberg. Much of Apple's iPhone assembly process takes place in China, as does the manufacturing of many iPhone components. China is also an important market for Apple, accounting for 22.5 percent of Apple's sales in 2016.

In a filing with the Beijing intellectual property court on September 29, Qualcomm claimed patent infringement and requested injunctive relief. "Apple employs technologies invented by Qualcomm without paying for them," said a Qualcomm spokesperson about the filing.

qualcomm-iphone-7-800x374.jpg

According to Qualcomm, the lawsuits are based on three non-standard essential patents covering power management and the Force Touch technology that Apple uses in its touch screens.

Qualcomm and Apple have been embroiled in an escalating legal battle since the beginning of this year after the FTC complained that Qualcomm engaged in anticompetitive licensing practices. Shortly after, Apple sued Qualcomm for $1 billion and accused the company of charging unfair royalties for "technologies they have nothing to do with" and failing to pay for quarterly rebates.

Apple stopped paying licensing fees to Qualcomm at that time, as did Apple suppliers. Apple maintains that Qualcomm charges excessive licensing fees by requesting a percentage of an iPhone's entire value, while Qualcomm says its technology is "at the heart of every iPhone."

Qualcomm has since countersued and filed several patent infringement lawsuits against Apple. Qualcomm has also asked the United States International Trade Commission to block imports of some iPhone and iPad models.

Qualcomm is also facing an FTC lawsuit in the U.S. for using anticompetitive tactics to remain the dominant supplier of baseband processors for smartphones and was recently fined $773 million in Taiwan for violating antitrust rules.

Article Link: Qualcomm Asks China to Stop Manufacturing and Selling iPhones via New Lawsuits
[doublepost=1507925732][/doublepost]Qualcomm is a very naive company.
 
As an investor, this concerns me a bit. China's not going to ban iPhones from being produced in China, but they love to mess with American companies, especially Apple. They apply pressure in various ways and extract concessions. And even the idea that iPhone production could be disrupted could have a massive negative effect on the stock price if this lawsuit advances and lingers.
 
Apple should either buy them and get their IP, or make their own components IMO

Apple is working on that, no doubt about it.
[doublepost=1507926348][/doublepost]
As an investor, this concerns me a bit. China's not going to ban iPhones from being produced in China, but they love to mess with American companies, especially Apple. They apply pressure in various ways and extract concessions. And even the idea that iPhone production could be disrupted could have a massive negative effect on the stock price if this lawsuit advances and lingers.

Pffft!
 
Remember the SCO Group some 10+ years ago, when it was going after every Linux vendor on the face of the earth, and ended up having their asses handed to them? Qualcomm is the new SCO.
 
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Android has "force touch" since 2009. The amount of sensitivity depends on the phone.

https://developer.android.com/reference/android/view/MotionEvent.html#getPressure()

The API for "force touch" has been available since Android 1.0, but it only became useful in API level 5 (2009). Why does android not have wider implementation of "force touch"? Because it sucks UI wise, the only time i use it on iPhone is when i'm trying to delete apps and end up in force touch limbo.
Get pressure, or long pressure is on the iPhone since 2007,
to delete apps on the home screen
Android has "force touch" since 2009. The amount of sensitivity depends on the phone.

https://developer.android.com/reference/android/view/MotionEvent.html#getPressure()

The API for "force touch" has been available since Android 1.0, but it only became useful in API level 5 (2009). Why does android not have wider implementation of "force touch"? Because it sucks UI wise, the only time i use it on iPhone is when i'm trying to delete apps and end up in force touch limbo.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_Touch
 
No. That's another common misconception. Qualcomm was dinged for not giving promised rebates, for requiring full licenses instead of partial ones, and not giving as much credit for cross licensing as people wanted.

They were not dinged for the way they charge. Remember, Nokia, LG, Sony, Ericsson, Motorola, and almost everyone else who created the cellular standards that Apple has made billions from, all charge a percentage.

Apple's arguments are not about being charged unfairly. Heck, Apple themselves charge by percentage for things like apps, adapters, even Apple Pay to banks, not to mention wanting a percentage of profits from Samsung. Cook simply needs to continue to make more profit, and if he can get royalties down, he can do that.

Nice spin but completely irrelevant.

Qualcomm is a corrupt company that’s lost several cases with large payouts and they still have pending investigations. Arguing about the finer points of how they steal is irrelevant. They are still crooks.
 
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If I understand right, it does seem absurd that Qualcomm gets a percentage of the device’s sale, since no matter what patents they hold, they have nothing to do with the cost of the components or the price people are willing to pay for the final product. No wonder Apple started making their own SOCs years ago. It’s probably what got this feud started.[/QUOTE

The part alone costs 18¢. The royalty they charge is far more than they deserve.
 
Nice spin but completely irrelevant.

Qualcomm is a corrupt company that’s lost several cases with large payouts and they still have pending investigations. Arguing about the finer points of how they steal is irrelevant. They are still crooks.

I wonder if I could s/Qualcomm/Apple/g:

Apple is a corrupt company that’s lost several cases, sanctioned by the UK court for lying and disobeying and they still have pending reviews on their frivolous patents that should have never been granted. Arguing about the finer points of how they steal is irrelevant. They are still crooks.

I think that's what I meant to say earlier!
 



Qualcomm recently filed lawsuits in China in an attempt to stop Apple from selling and manufacturing iPhones in the country, reports Bloomberg. Much of Apple's iPhone assembly process takes place in China, as does the manufacturing of many iPhone components. China is also an important market for Apple, accounting for 22.5 percent of Apple's sales in 2016.

In a filing with the Beijing intellectual property court on September 29, Qualcomm claimed patent infringement and requested injunctive relief. "Apple employs technologies invented by Qualcomm without paying for them," said a Qualcomm spokesperson about the filing.

qualcomm-iphone-7-800x374.jpg

According to Qualcomm, the lawsuits are based on three non-standard essential patents covering power management and the Force Touch technology that Apple uses in its touch screens.

Qualcomm and Apple have been embroiled in an escalating legal battle since the beginning of this year after the FTC complained that Qualcomm engaged in anticompetitive licensing practices. Shortly after, Apple sued Qualcomm for $1 billion and accused the company of charging unfair royalties for "technologies they have nothing to do with" and failing to pay for quarterly rebates.

Apple stopped paying licensing fees to Qualcomm at that time, as did Apple suppliers. Apple maintains that Qualcomm charges excessive licensing fees by requesting a percentage of an iPhone's entire value, while Qualcomm says its technology is "at the heart of every iPhone."

Qualcomm has since countersued and filed several patent infringement lawsuits against Apple. Qualcomm has also asked the United States International Trade Commission to block imports of some iPhone and iPad models.

Qualcomm is also facing an FTC lawsuit in the U.S. for using anticompetitive tactics to remain the dominant supplier of baseband processors for smartphones and was recently fined $773 million in Taiwan for violating antitrust rules.

Article Link: Qualcomm Asks China to Stop Manufacturing and Selling iPhones via New Lawsuits


So.....redirect the initial Chinese X shipment to the US for launch weekend? I'm cool with that. Judging by the people in the lineup for the launches since the iPhone 5, a bunch of Asian individuals will be scalping them here to send back anyway.

Before someone loses their mind and calls me a racist, I was in the line for the 5, 6, and 6s. Each time it started with one or two people, then they'd be trying to sneak additional people to their spot, and sometimes would try to use kids as mules to get a couple more phone purchases.
 
I wonder if I could s/Qualcomm/Apple/g:

Apple is a corrupt company that’s lost several cases, sanctioned by the UK court for lying and disobeying and they still have pending reviews on their frivolous patents that should have never been granted. Arguing about the finer points of how they steal is irrelevant. They are still crooks.

I think that's what I meant to say earlier!

No, I think what you meant to say is:

“I’m going to ignore all the times Samsung lost or had to drop their cases, and then selectively pick a few cases they won to try and make a point. I’ll also ignore the dozens of Samsung executives that have been charged and gone to prison (including two CEOs) and the numerous times they’ve been found guilty of price fixing and other illegal activities. This way I can pretend Apple is just as bad.”
[doublepost=1507928286][/doublepost]
Apple should either buy them and get their IP, or make their own components IMO

Apple should release the A10 and A9 and allow other smartphone vendors to use them. Who’d buy an inferior Qualcomm processor when an Apple one is available
 
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