This must be a typo… they mean $31 billion, right? Suing for $31M is a waste of money for both companies except for the lawyers. They’re nuts!
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Qualcomm Wants Apple to Pay $31 Million in Damages in Patent Battle
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And guess what, my parents are still using their iPhone 6’s they bought more than 4 years ago. Just because the network isn’t completely rolled out yet doesn’t mean you shouldn’t future-proof. It’ll just connect to LTE in the meantime, just like the iPhone 5 connected to 3G when an LTE signal wasn’t available.
For this particular lawsuit, involving only three patents, they’ll probably spend less than 10 million on legal fees.
Remember though this is just one suit out of several, and this isn’t the big one.
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And when it connects to 5g what advantage do you expect to see, in a phone, vs. lte?
Majority of the replies kept pointing to the fact Apple should just pay it. That’s the point of my reply
Do You really think the best and brightest wanna work for apple? I highly doubt, they would imho never work for a leader like cook. And so apple will always stay 2nd class, as they are now in many areas!
And people are slowly figuring it out
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Precedent is not even a real word. You can not set something for the future. The future just doesnt exist, so why You guys think You can predict something not really predictable
Problem seems to be that Qualcomm is accusing Apple of using its previous relationship with it to have helped Intel with the infringement. No idea if that’s true or not, but that’s why they are going after Apple.
Any 5G smartphone will be ancient by the time 5G actually rolls out - in 2-5 years. Unless you are compelled to update your phone this year (not to a 5G phone) there will be no point being behind the current phones that get released when the network is up. It is definitely going to cost more for it 5G feature.
Precedent is a real English word, pertinent in legal and medical settings, probably in more sectors.
The concept of "Future" - an early Saturday morning philosophical discourse.
I reckon Qualcomm will win.. They have Apple right in the palm of their hands..
Their good at that.
Their good at that.
The best Cpu designers for sure work at apple. I know them and what they did in the past at other companies. And Tim Cook is far better than some of their prior bosses.
As it has been said multiple times, again and again. The Component manufacture do not paid for the licenses. It is only the devices manufacture that do. You can buy an Intel Modem and only pay for 3G patents if all you intend is to ship a 3G Phone.
And to those saying Apple should just pay off, if Apple don't fight just paid this, this is the biggest signal that Apple is infringing on many other patents as well, and will then have no barging power to Qualcomm 4G and 5G patents fees.
The real battle is next month when they are in court about the FRAND pricing.
It’s hard to understand why Qualcomm would do this to one of its best customers. In the beginning it seems to be only about being greedy but now it just really about being dumb.
They are fighting for their terrible business model. If they have to compete just on price and capabilities, they will have a hard time. Being able to charge what they want is how they manage to keep so many people on the payroll while still making a profit.
It depends. Once a case goes to trial, the dollar amounts go up because that takes a lot of hours of work. A typical three patent case might go from 5 million to 10 million. It depends on how big the legal team is, which depends on what’s at stake. If the potential payout is only 31 million and the defense knows that, they would tend to use a smaller team and to turn over fewer rocks in defending. If apple wants to really go full bore because there are bigger issues at stake, the price could be higher.
Does the lawyer really can keep a straight face telling big corporates I want $10m to defend you in court? I understand if they had like 1000 lawyers working on it on a big case which it will be split between all of them but $10m for the efforts of 2-4 lawyers seems crazy.
These things are normally billed hourly and require a lot of technical research, a lot of legal research, a lot of patent research, a lot of meetings with the engineers involved, a lot of meetings with management, and the cost of computers, copies, offices, outside engineers/specialists, etc. While there are probably only 2 or 3 lawyers on the filing documents, I'll bet there are a dozen or more lawyers doing research and probably a dozen or more associates/staff supporting them. For this kind of case you have the equivalent of a small company with 30 to 40 people over multiple years. $10m does not sound high at all.
First, you need to remember that unlike most lawyer, patent litigators (most of them) have engineering backgrounds as well. So they need to be good lawyers and good engineers. At least half the team typically falls in this category. It’s hard to find people like that. The team in the apple case probably consists of at least 10 people, each of whom has probably put in 2000 hours on this case, working with experts to produce expert reports, reading hundreds of patents and technical papers to find prior art (searching the world for it), deposing opposing experts, deposing technical witnesses, etc.
Patent cases are also more complicated than most legal cases because they require an unusual process, including Markman hearings, exchanges of invalidity and infringement contentions, etc.
There are probably millions of pages of discovery produced (documents, emails, etc.), which have to be collected, reviewed for relevancy, checked for privilege, etc. Then the other side has to read each of these to determine what effect it has on the case. There are also paralegals, secretaries, trial teams who create graphics and animated videos, etc.
First year patent attorneys from big firms bill at $400 an hour or so, and the most senior person on the team may bill at around $1200 (and no, they don’t keep the money. This is what the firm charges)
By the way, if the client wants a “leaner” operation, I know some folks who can probably get equal results for half the spend
If Apple settled wouldn't it add to the validity of Qualcomm’s patents? Could Qualcomm then sue other manufacturers who might also agree to pay because Apple already paid? Just curious, I’m in no way a lawyer.
Why would apple care if Qualcomm sued other manufacturers? They would actually WANT that, because otherwise Apple would be competing with companies who aren’t having to pay that expense.
In any event, if they settled it would have no legal effect on the patents, though it may convince others to take licenses as well, and it might help determine what the appropriate price is for those licenses. Again, not something apple would care about, so not something that would be taken into account when they are deciding whether to settle.
There is no point using 5g before there are enough 5g towers setup. 5g for mobile is not a big step up from LTE advanced. 5g is for IoT, which is still very new and expensive. Without the ecosystem, the first one who eats the crab, will pay its price.
