Apple IS shady. Just because others are doesn't excuse Apple's own tactics.
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Qualcomm Says Apple is $7 Billion Behind in Royalty Payments
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Apple IS shady. Just because others are doesn't excuse Apple's own tactics.
The fact that even though Apple is purchasing the chips from them, that they want them to also pay them to use the chips. Sorry but it’s one or the other. Otherwise it’s double dipping and greedy.
Apple is currently paying for the Qualcomm chip, it’s the second royalty charge they are withholding until Qualcomm agrees to FRAND pricing.
Apple may have already paid $10 Billion to Qualcomm for these chips of which is a fair price.
Like buying a new MacBook for a retail price then getting a second bill from Apple because it’s has an Apple logo on it.
Apple are nasty pieces of work behind the shiny frontage and admittedly gorgeous looking designs. Just one of multiple examples on YouTube of "Genius" speaking absolute nonsense.
Charging thousands for a bent PIN
Trying to charge a kid $1500 for a new laptop gpu for - this time - what is a magnet sensor pin issue
And calling a popcorned CPU liquid damage
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1. Qualcomm makes ~20-30 billion in revenue each year. Apple's a big player but by no means all their business.
2. It's a dispute that covers multiple years (over which time their revenue woulda been hundreds of billions). Think 50 million iPhones being sold a quarter (say ~200 million+ a year) times however many dollars per phone and you are easily up in the billions. Over a 10 year period, 7 billion is a drop in the water for two companies of that size (it'd be within a common margin of error and would likely include a bunch of technicalities about what accounting methods are being used...etc and whether certain categories of chips should be counted... or how to calculate a discount for a category of chips...etc).
I know the numbers sound big/greedy to your average punter but for multinationals and investment banks...etc I can totally see how a disputed calculation method could lead to total revenue over say 10 years being $7 billion more/less depending on how you've done your maths. This isn't greed, it's just business. I'm sure anybody with a patent would wanna count the beans while the sun shines because the patent only gives them exclusivity for so long (and you'd wanna maximise that). Put yourself in heir shoes. If they lose 5% in total over the life of the patent (due to some incorrect bean counting) then that could cost them trillions of dollars. Of course you'd try to defend it!!!
Ultimately the court will decide and I dunno about the facts to decide either way. However, it's a pretty blind fanboy statement to say that such claims are purely out of greed and have no factual basis. I deal with multinationals and investment banks on a daily basis... I don't see $7 billion as being a huge/fictitious number for players of this nature.
Apple isn’t shady. You just don’t like their policies. And trotting out a few YouTube videos out the probably tens of millions of interactions doesn’t make it so.
Have you seen any episode of Shark Tank or similar? People there are getting screwed by millionaires on TV
Signing a deal does not necessarily make it legal. The law always rules over any deal.
Otherwise - as an extreme example - you could legally allow someone to take your life. You can’t, it’s murder. (With the door exception of euthanasia - which is very strongly regulated and justifiablely so)
That’s not how contract law works in every instance. As a general matter, yes, contract prices in excess of the FMV are enforceable, but not if there is fraud in the inducement or if the party seeking enforcement (Qualcomm) knew that the other party was relying on a mistaken fact.
I don’t know all of the details of the particular contracts at issue in this case, but it does seem that when Apple and Qualcomm first entered into the licensing agreement, there was an understanding that the price was $X, but subsequent to that antitrust rulings across the globe (pretty much everywhere except the US) against Qualcomm threw into doubt the true FMV of the license. Qualcomm can be imputed to know that its license would be vulnerable to such regulatory review, since antitrust penalties can only be enforced if there is scientor.
If that is what occurred, the contract is voidable at Apple’s election, and the court would grant damages to Qualcomm equal to the gap between what Apple paid and what the FRAND rate would have been over the relevant period.
I don’t know what that damages award would be, but my guess, given that Apple can afford the very best IP lawyers, is that it’s below $7 billion.
It’s not that simple at all. I imagine you bought an iPhone and tomorrow Apple says okay you need to pay us $X every time you use it as well. Not knowing better you pay a couple times, but now you think maybe it’s not right?
So you stop paying these extra payments and you go to court in the meantime.
You want the court to clearly define those things. If Apple lets Qualcomm do this what to stop Samsung, Intel, any of the other component manufacturers from doing this?
What we should really be unhappy is all these lawmakers who know jack squat about technology and how if even works or they are making laws only to appease only a certain group of people or get votes.
Recently a friend of mine running a long time business was sued by one of his employees. In every instance he was right but there was this piece of paper that he had to have his employees sign that he didn’t. Even though he treated all the employees the best and they all knew this, because of this one greedy employee he has now had to close the company and everyone has to be let go. Although that the law was written to protect the employees from exploitation, itfail to account that perhaps if you forget to sign this piece of paper there is no say to go back and have everyone sign it. Basically if you forgot to sign this one piece of paper you were screwed forever. The law to this day has no remedy for this, so if someone goes to sues the employee back in this instance in hope that it will reach a higher court and the law fixed does the company become a bully? Do you know there are many lawyers that charge zero to the employees but my friend was paying millions out of legal fees instead of expanding business, giving bonuses, providing for his community?
It’s hard to take the side of a trillion dollar company and maybe Apple has gotten brazen, but it’s about time, because clearly the laws and rules of the game are not defined properly and someone needs to go to court for there to be a way to clarify it.
Gotta say there are a lot of uneducated people commenting on how deal is a deal Go play lawyer somewhere else.
Go play lawyer somewhere else.
Yes, the house is certainly on fire. At least Qualcomm's lawyer is smart enough to recognize that. Hopefully the company management will recognize what their lawyer does.
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I think I'll buy a phone from Apple for over $1000, but 6 months in, feel it's overpriced and let Apple know as I now feel this, I'll be stopping future payments
I'm sure they will understand.
If I am understanding correctly, a better analogy would be if you paid Apple $1000 for your phone, and then they also charged you $300 each month for the 'holding in hand' fee when you used it. Eventually, you go, 'hey, none of the other phone makers have a 'holding in hand' fee, and stop paying that.
Qualcomm should just stop delivering the chips hehe. Apple believes they can do just about anything business wise. Sadly their products no longer have the quality they used to and they’re as good as their products.
The lesser of evils can still ultimately be a good thing on the whole.
But yeah, Apple isn't any kind of saint, they are just much better than most other companies. It's a low bar.
Why can’t Apple just buy out Qualcomm and get this over with! Then sell the company piece by piece.
Lol! Qualcomm should cooperate with Apple and maybe accept half of this outrageous sum. If they weren’t so anticompetitive maybe they wouldn’t be in this mess.
Apple should just threaten them with a hostile takeover and I’m sure they will accept $3.5 billion rather quickly.
OK they’re worth almost $92 billion. This is not chump change even for Apple but a controlling interest would cost $46-50 billion or so and then they could make that back from all of the Android OEMs. They all rely on Qualcomm except for Samsung abroad with their Exynos, which is ironically a better SoC.
No. That company lied about what they were able to produce, and then bailed on the deal and tried to leave Apple holding the bag. Instead, Apple seized a factory and repurposed it. That sapphire company also bailed on their shareholders and screwed them after lying to secure the deal honestly.
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The App Store is not an industry standard with FRAND in play.
Well, that company had to buy all the furnaces and when Apple was not happy with the yield rates, Apple called it quits leaving the other party with a huge debt. The owner bailed on the shareholders only when Apple was already out of the picture. So Apple pulled the plug first. I would never ever defend Apple in anything. They’re notorious liars and just a typical big corporation.
When Qualcomm was the only modem supplier, they were ok with all the terms. When Intel offered Apple a better cut, they decided that Qualcomm rates were “not fair”. They had agreeed to those terms in the first place. Apple is being typical Apple: their way or no way. The same sort of BS we saw with the whole situation with Flash.
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FRAND doesn't mean free or cheap. It means the deal should be fair (similar pricing for all customers, not a bigger bill for rich customers). Since most private contracts are private, can you show which Qualcomm customers are getting a better deal than Apple? How is it not FRAND?
I don't think you're the one to make that accusation here, since most people know you as the person who only makes Apple-bashing posts no matter the circumstance. Which I wouldn't normally say, but now that you're insulting people...
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That happens all the time.