Apple Agrees To Pay Licensing Fees To Nokia 205
dkd903 writes "After almost two years of litigation of Nokia and Apple suing and counter-suing each other, the patent war between the two companies has come to an end. The winner of this settlement is, however, Nokia. As a part of the settlement, Apple has agreed to become a licensee of Nokia's patents. As a part of the licensing agreement, Apple has agreed to give Nokia a one-time payment and ongoing royalties. The exact terms of the agreement have not been disclosed."
wait a sec (Score:4, Funny)
I thought Apple was the company doing all the innovation.
In their defense... (Score:2, Offtopic)
...and let me first say, I don't like Apple, don't like their snobbish, and inferior (imho) interfaces, their lock-in, and their outrageous prices.
However...
Apple, though I don't agree with how they do it, are able to bring together X, Y, and Z in a one of the most fascinatingly memetic way that touches something in a global manner. They are not innovators, because they don't own X, Y, or likely Z either. They design in such a way as to make people say, "What an innovation!" Yet, they are looking at the s
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...and let me first say, I don't like Apple, don't like their snobbish, and inferior (imho) interfaces, their lock-in, and their outrageous prices.
However...
Apple, though I don't agree with how they do it, are able to bring together X, Y, and Z in a one of the most fascinatingly memetic way that touches something in a global manner. They are not innovators, because they don't own X, Y, or likely Z either. They design in such a way as to make people say, "What an innovation!" Yet, they are looking at the same X, Y, and Z as before. Mozart didn't invent musical instruments, he simply mastered their use and composition.
But there is a price. Mozart didn't get free pianos or violins simply because he knew how to use them. We shouldn't assume that because Apple uses a technology better that they invented or even improved it. And, in their defense, maybe they fell into the same fallacy of "I use it best, I should therefore not be bound to pay or give others credit." Unfortunately, this is much like those of us (and I do mean myself in that "us") who love FOSS and bristle that we have to actually "pay" for code sometimes.
Two paragraphs of back handed bull shit. Bravo! Now get back to the end of the line.
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I think it's an inverse squared relationship...
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In all fairness, your post is misleading. Nokia was asking Apple to pay more than everyone else was paying because Apple had no IP of its own that was useful to throw into the bargaining process. Usually there is an IP swap going on as well.
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In all fairness, your post is misleading. Nokia was asking Apple to pay more than everyone else was paying because Apple had no IP of its own that was useful to throw into the bargaining process. Usually there is an IP swap going on as well.
In all fairness, your post is misleading.
Apple was trying to claim that Nokia patents not covered under RAND were covered under RAND and not pay the fee's that other companies who want to use these patents pay.
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Well this sounds similar to the kind of tricks Apple is pulling with its anti-competitive price-policies in the app store.
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Apple has hardware patents. Some relate to their computers and some are in their iOS devices. For example they acquired Fingerworks for their multi-touch patents.
As far as I'm aware, most of Apple's multi-touch patents are for the software end of multi-touch. For example, they've patented a wide variety of gestures and uses for them within applications. The actual hardware is developed and built by other companies, and presumably they're the ones that own most of the hardware patents.
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Apple is a software company? (Score:5, Informative)
Since when? They've been buidling hardware for >30 years and have thousands of hardware patents.
The whole case was that Nokia insisted on unfettered access to Apple's intellectual property as a condition of Apple implementing a global standard (which was supposed to be offered under reasonable and non-discriminatory terms).
Link (Score:4, Informative)
http://seekingalpha.com/article/177955-apple-launches-countersuit-vs-nokia-no-punches-pulled-in-court-documents
Which of these statements is false?:
1. GSM is a global standard.
2. Nokia agreed to F/RAND standards for licensing all patents required to implement GSM as a condition of making it a global standard
3. Nokia was insisting on disproportionate value from Apple (compared to other licensees) in exchange for the licenses to implement GSM. They wanted either far more money than they were charging other licensees, or unfettered access to Apple's intellectual property (not part of any standard) on a hundred billion dollar business.
So, who is the bully and who is the victim here?
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The false statement here is #3. Nokia was not insisting on disproportionate value from Apple compared to other licensees, because other licensees have brought their own patents to the table, and not just money (in some cases, those were purely cross-licensing deals). At that point, the "disproportionality" boils down to the value of those patents, which is a rather subjective measure.
However, I think that the proposed deal was likely fair to Apple, because otherwise they would have sued Nokia in EU courts f
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"However, I think that the proposed deal was likely fair to Apple, because otherwise they would have sued Nokia in EU courts for anti-competitive practices, precisely because Nokia agreed to license patents under RAND; and these things are generally taken more seriously in Europe than in US. It's also likely why they have now settled."
From what I understand, the RAND terms only applied to GSM association members which Apple was not one of, and if this is the case, then Nokia did nothing wrong in this respec
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Patent lawyers and consumers?
Why isn't this public information (Score:2)
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Perhaps that is why. Kept up with who's calling the shots at Nokia lately?
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Nonsense. Companies are not required (and do not) report on every single transaction that can affect profit. If Apple had been paying Nokia all along would anyone know the details of that? No. This is just a cost increase to Apple, and an income increase to Nokia. That is normal, everyday business.
Nokia agressed and won (Score:2)
I had to look it up, it's hard to keep track of who's starting the wars and who's responding. Nokia sued [engadget.com] and sued again [betanews.com]. Apple counter-sued in the middle there.
The Lawyers won (Score:3)
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It sounds like a schoolyard grudge:
Here is a brief history of the patent lawsuits between Nokia and Apple.
- In October 2009, Nokia started off the patent war against Apple with a lawsuit claiming that Apple’s iPhone infringes on 10 Nokia patents related to GSM, UMTS and Wi-Fi.
-In December 2009, Apple counter sued Nokia claiming that Nokia infringes on 13 patents owned by Apple.
-Almost two weeks after Apple countersued them, Nokia filed a complaint against Apple in the International Trade Commission. The complaint claims that virtually all of Apple’s devices infringe on one of seven patents owned by Nokia that covers the UI, camera, antenna and power management.
-A few days (January 2010) after the complaint to the ITC, Nokia again went to the ITC and asked that they ban the import of all Apple products – from MacBooks to iPods.
-Two weeks after Nokia asked the ITC to ban all Apple devices, Apple responded in the same vein by asking the ITC to ban import of Nokia devices to the US.
-In May 2010, Nokia again sued Apple saying that the iPhone 3G infringes on five Nokia patents. At this point, Nokia is accusing Apple of infringing on 22 patents and Apple is accusing Nokia of infringing 13 Apple patents.
-In December 2010, Nokia again sues Apple in the UK, Germany and Netherlands claiming that the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch infringes on 13 Nokia patents which cover issues such as UI, antenna design, messaging etc.
-In March 2011, Nokia again returned to the International Trade Commission to complain against Apple and added seven more patents to the list that they are accusing Apple of infringing. The seven new patents that Nokia is accusing Apple of infringing are related to technologies about multitasking, bluetooth, data synchronization etc.
-Finally in June 2011 (today), Apple has succumbed and has agreed to pay Nokia to license the Nokia patents.
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From what is publicly known, nobody can say whether this is a win for Nokia, or for Apple, or a compromise. Apple was willing to pay $X + no patents, Nokia wanted $Y + patents, and now Apple is paying $Z + some patents but not the ones Nokia asked f
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Fine summary, except that you leave one detail out: Apple always agreed to pay Nokia the same license fees that other phone makers are paying.
Fine excuse, except you leave out one detail. Apple wanted to use patents in Nokia's portfolio that were not covered under the RAND license Apple was paying.
The defending parties only make out of court deals when they know they are wrong and don't want to run the risk of paying the other sides legal fees. Apple figured out this couldn't be obfuscated in court any longer. Apple has more then enough money to fight this, so if they had a chance of wining, why wouldn't they?
Common Enemy (Score:2)
I'm sure part of the agreement was to gang up and start slapping Google around a bit more.
So, that's Apple and Nokia together (and through Nokia now, Microsoft too).
Better article (Score:2)
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Most important info not released... (Score:3)
The most important info was left out. The reason this all played out was that Nokia was unwilling to license to Apple on the same RAND terms that they had committed to, and used with everyone else. They wanted access to specific 'touch' patents held by Apple in addition to the usual monetary payments that Apple had always expected to pay.
We now know Apple is paying to access Nokia's patents, but:
Did Apple give access to their iPhone-related patent portfolio in return?
Did Apple pay a premium over RAND terms?
Did Nokia no longer need access to Apple's patents due to indemnity from Microsoft since they are moving to WP7?
Re:Most important info not released... (Score:4, Informative)
According to Apple:
"Apple and Nokia have agreed to drop all of our current lawsuits and enter into a license covering some of each other’s patents, but not the majority of the innovation that makes the iPhone unique"
So it seems Nokia has access to some of that portfolio, although we'll probably never know exactly what
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/15/technology/15nokia.html?_r=1 [nytimes.com]
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Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/15/technology/15nokia.html?_r=1 [nytimes.com]
And half that NYT article consists of: "Florian Mueller, an intellectual property analyst ...", "Mr. Mueller said ...", "Mr. Mueller said ...", "Mr. Mueller said ..." and "... said Mr. Mueller".
Why does that guy still get such an amount of attention?
Does it matter? (Score:2)
When you next complain about US patent law... (Score:2)
Remember that European patent law apparently isn't any more enlightened. Nokia was able to sue Apple because they have patents covering GSM, UMTS, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth (or some aspects thereof)?
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Some numbers (albeit speculative) to the deal (Score:2)
See The Guardian (Great Britain):
"Apple to pay Nokia big settlement plus royalties in patent dispute
Tuesday 14 June 2011 18.20 BST
The Finnish phone-maker Nokia could receive a one-off payment of more than €800m (£700m) from Apple and receive further royalties of €8 per iPhone sold in future, after winning a settlement in a long-running patents dispute.
Although terms of the settlement were not disclosed, previous patent licensing deals in the phone industry have been worth up to 5% of the pri
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I wonder to what degree this indemnifies them against patent trolling by MSFT later?
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While Nokia has taken a hammering because they can't seem to get a smartphone out the door, they do have a lot of 'basic research' patents on assorted cellular technologies, and I'm just guessing that Apple's b
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There has been much written about Nokia failures to respond to the disruptive market conditions caused by RIM and Apple. Remember 5 years ago RIM was the object of lawsuits because it was the company that was going to make all the legecy mobile phone manufacturers go bankrupt. Now that Apple is the big new kid on the block, the legacy mobile firms refused to let it into the c
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While Nokia has taken a hammering because they can't seem to get a smartphone out the door
They've gotten lots of smart phones out the door. Just not ones that very many people wanted.
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I'm no fan of the Windows Phone, but I've also learned not to write off MS so quickly. Every time they come out with a new product, everyone laughs it off. And sometimes (as with the Zune) that proves to be warranted. But I also remember when the Xbox came out and Sony laughed that off. Then the Xbox 360 became the dominant brand in North America and suddenly Sony wasn't laughing anymore.
You can question the merits of their products, but there is little doubt that MS has a lot of marketing money to through
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That says more about Sony's hubris then MS's acumen. Nintendo's response was to look at what console gamers actually wanted and produce a system that was radically different to both MS's and Sony's offerings which earned bucketloads of cash for Nintendo.
The Xbox program is a massive money sink for MS, even now the Xbox 360 is being
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"Fanboi" is a compound word, with one part based on the word "fanatic". It's quite clear that "anti-Apple fanatic" sums up your posts here quite well.
And, since you are so eager to use the term yourself, anti-Apple fanboi.
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That were never really popular.
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The Nokia N-Series was.
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That were never really popular.
Blackberry was never popular?
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In the business market they were. But they were never popular in the consumer market, and still aren't.
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Their deal with MSFT is probably good for them because Nokia was in a death spiral, without any kind of a mobile OS that could compete in this market. Selling their soul to MSFT gets them the OS, and it might get them back into retail here in the US. (When was the last time you saw anything from Nokia at the Verizon/ATT store...?)
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Having handsets turned on today is no indication that your place in the market will be there in a year. They had residual market share with a dying OS that was being left further and further in the dust over time.
RIM has a big chunk of market share too, but that doesn't mean they are in wonderful shape. I'm certain that RIM sees the bottom coming up at them too.
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In Q1 2011, even after Elop killed it at the beginning of the year, Symbian's worldwide marketshare was 24%.
To which had plummeted around 40% in past couple of years.
The sales of Windows Phone, the supposed saviour of Nokia, sum up to 2.5%, ten times lower than the dead Symbian.
But with potential to grow, unlike Symbian that is rapidly dying. The question is would you rather jump on board an existing established OS (Android) where you bring little to the market or be responsible for bringing marketshare to a fledgling operating system?
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But with potential to grow, unlike Symbian that is rapidly dying.
But I question the factual consistence of both of these statements: what theoretical suppositions support WP's hope of growth, and what pratical facts confirm them?
I don't see how you can question the factual consistence of the rapid decline of Symbian, it's all blindingly obvious.
Given that WP has a good user experience and rapidly growing app store coupled with an announced update bringing it to general feature-parity with iOS and Android means it certainly is a viable competitor and thus has potential for growth in the market.
What made it impractical to keep the declining Symbian alive, while the switch to Maemo was being completed?
Probably the fact that it was completely uncompetitive in terms of user experience. Maemo just wasn't successful (great for hackers, not so
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They had the MeeGo option, which was the real linux on a smartphone rather then a bastardised java VM driving OS in android, which microsoftie boss dropped like a hot cake.
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a bastardised java VM driving OS in android
Admittedly though, a VM is the best bet for a current smartphone OS, since nobody can say in which architecture your phone will be running in 2 years, let alone 5.
Besides, Android's now moving from smartphones to tablets, to car stereos, TVs, and who knows what else.
Using native code for apps would kill their options to grow in the future. MS also saw that, and so did Palm.
I don't know about Apple or RIM, I think they compile their apps to native code. While that's a better idea on the short term, eventuall
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"Always" != "Couple of recent years".
n95 with its symbian 9.2 was the #1 smartphone in the world at the time of release, absolutely no doubt about it anywhere except maybe some truly hardcore anti-nokia folks.
But then touchscreen phones came and essentially disrupted the market. That's when nokia's problems started.
Re:It won't keep Nokia alive (Score:5, Interesting)
I humbly disagree. I am European, and i can say, that although Nokia was never "bad", they didn't always have the "tech" hardware, or software, their price tags warrented.
I have owned, or had access to a huge variaty of phones from 1997, to present, including the Nokia 8110 ( the Matrix phone), 6150, 6210, 8210, Ericsson T68, T610, P800, S700, K800, N95, Moto v3i, and many other brands, including HTC, and Apple.
Take the early days (1995 - 1996) when i first got my mobile phone. Of the "big three", Nokia Ericsson and Motorola. Moto was known for "cheaper" but relatively solid, if basic phones. Nokia's flagship was the 2110, and Ericsson had the EH337. The Ericsson phone was by far better build quality, was more robust, had more "features".
Nokia then brought out the 8110 in 1996 (the same phone that later appeared in the Matrix) and that phone pushed Nokia into the market due to its style, and "number of ringtones". However, the phone was not as well built as Ericsson, and arguably lacked many key features (keyguard, clock, etc). the Phone was a marketting success for Nokia, not nessesarily a tech one. I had one myself.
After that, Nokia improved their platform, starting with the 6110, the 2110, which launched the infamous "nokia ui" together with the prorietry Ringtones/Logos, etc. The current Series 40 is an evolution from that. Right up until 2001 with the release of Ericsson T68, Nokia had the UI experience that beat other manufacturers.
Their tech may have not always been the most advanced: indeed Others had POP email, Bluetooth, open ringtones/picture support. Nokia's first bluetooth implementations were a joke, with phones being shipped with bluetooth on and discoverable as standard, resulting in those Nokia users being easy pickings for BlueJacking. Even today, Nokias implementation of Bluetooth although a lot better than android/iphone/ and most others, are still not as good as most comparable Sony Ericsson feature phones, still not supporting multi connections. Their email support still doesnt support IMAP idle in a sane way (Sony ericssons have been supporting that since the K800i)
However the Nokia UI, and propritry customisations drove the market. The problem for nokia came when they originally released the Series 60, they wanted to emulate the Original Nokia UI as much as possible. It was argued that UIQ by Symbian was a better implementation, which would have been more "touch friendly" from the go, as it was already a pen interface.
This was what caused the huge legacy problems in the future. When I got my Nokia N95, although i was really impressed by the hardware, the tech was amazing, the software was really confusing, and long in the tooth. For example:
- Nokia still has the same T9 implementation it had on earlier phones, whereas other manufactureres have improved the technology incredibly.
- 3 different places to set varies WiFi parameters (grrr)
- disjointed settings, lack of clarity.
This was the reason Nokia messed up. IT wasnt as much that the Apple iphone touch interface was soo "good", whcih admittedly it was, it was more the case that Series 60 became so "bad", and apple just polished up.
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Nokia had to do a hell of a lot wrong to be in this position, because they were doing a hell of a lot right with Maemo/Linux. As a satisfied N900 user I'm quite happy to see Nokia dying after such a betrayal of it's active community.
Great phone for hackers, but not so much for end-users.
Re:$1 up front $0.01 per device (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes. It's never been a question whether Apple needed to license the patents. The sticking point has always been the terms. Normally these licenses involve some sort of cross licensing. I think Apple originally objected to the specific patents that Nokia wanted from them as they felt the patents were not cell phone patents but patents to their other technology. Frankly Apple didn't have a lot of cell phone patents so they didn't have many to offer. So Nokia then raised the licensing cost if they were not getting the patents they wanted. Apple objected to that.
Since we don't know the terms, we can't speculate how it was settled. There are two factors that may come into play. (1) Nokia is in a bit of trouble right now; they need to focus on their business and not a resource draining litigation where in the end only the lawyers may win. (2)Apple bought 200 patents from Freescale (former Motorola semiconductor division). So Apple now has patents to offer in cross licensing.
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Since we don't know the terms, we can't speculate how it was settled
Actually, since we don't know the terms, all we can do is speculate.
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Since we don't know the terms, we can't speculate how it was settled
Actually, since we don't know the terms, all we can do is speculate.
OK here goes. The chairman of Nokia gets to screw the Chairman of Apple's daughter.
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Wasn't Nokia specifically asking for multitouch patents?
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Doesn't "Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory" mean that they have to offer the same terms to Apple that they would offer to Motorola, HTC, et al?
RAND for GSMA members, not for everyone... (Score:2)
Doesn't "Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory" mean that they have to offer the same terms to Apple that they would offer to Motorola, HTC, et al?
The requirement for RAND terms applies only to members of the GSMA. Apple is not a member, initially because it saw no need to become one twenty years ago, and more recently perhaps because membership would require it to grant RAND terms on some of its own patents to the other members of GSMA. Hint: GSMA membership [gsm.org] includes Ericsson, HTC, Intel, Microsoft, Nokia, RIM, Samsung, and many others, but not Apple or Motorola.
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You are essentially correct, but apple refused to join the GSMA even AFTER they decided to jump into the GSM market place.
And contrary to many posters in this thread, GSMA was not asking for ALL apple iphone patents, simply those patents pertaining to GSM radio and feature space which were pertinent to handsets.
But Apple invented practically nothing in this regard, they simply used chipsets manufactured by others. They therefore, initially, claimed that all royalties were paid by Infineon and Broadcom and
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The numbers won't be in the 100M range.
It might even be a number with a B behind it.
Royalties probably have a low estimate of around $5 per handset, and perhaps as high as $15.
Microsoft makes $5 per android handset for software licenses alone.
With something approaching 80 million iPhones sold, you can easily see this could be rather larger
than 100M.
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The summary is wrong. Apple got what they wanted. (Score:5, Interesting)
Apple have been fighting all along to pay royalties. Nokia wanted Apple to hand-over some of their patents relating to mobile 'phones but Apple refused.
Apple got what they wanted, not Nokia.
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Nokia gets 10$ for every iphone sold. Sure Apple is the winner!!
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That's ok. Apple gets about $600 for every iPhone sold.
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Wow! Really! Never thought about it.
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Subsidies are what has made Apple very, very rich.
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But Apple has to produce the iPhones, whereas Nokia basically gets money for doing nothing.
I'd say I'd prefer to be Nokia in this situation.
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A perfect example of where percentages are meaningless.
Nokia makes an infinite percent, but actually only $10 per phone.
Apple makes about 83 percent, but actually makes about $500 net per phone.
And why would you rather be Nokia?
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Nokia gets 10$ for every iphone sold. Sure Apple is the winner!!
Nokia gets some undisclosed amount of money for licensing their patents to Apple (as the law requires), you mean. You can be sure it's not $10/iPhone.
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No, the case started because Apple believed they had already paid because the manufacturer of the GSM-chip had paid the license and Apple believed Nokia was double-dipping. The court rules Apple had to pay up.
Why are you rewriting the case?
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Fair enough. Sounds like Apple backed down from their lawsuit, but settlements does have the benefit of being possible to portray as a win for both sides, especially if the details are kept secret.
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You're wrong. The summary is correct [nytimes.com]:
"Apple and Nokia have agreed to drop all of our current lawsuits and enter into a license covering some of each other’s patents"
Nokia may have got less than what they originally wanted, but it's certainly not just cash.
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Really? So iPhone 5 is dropping GSM support?
Pure VoIP phone or what?
Re:Here's the question...Who is next? (Score:5, Informative)
No one, everybody but Apple was already paying the licensing fee, or was a co-developer of the technology. This is part of the reason why Apple's case has been so weak.
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Yeah, turns out not so much.
Do you know something that we don't? Did they cut their licensing costs or not? Are they worse off than if they'd just paid Nokia in the first place?
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They will make profit anyway. And they have been making more profit than the others by using something for free and asking money for it.
This is sort of like deciding whether to commit a crime or not. If you get only to pay for it it'st just matter of having enough money.
It would be interesting to see what the ethics would be if the executives were personally responsible.
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No, they thought they weren't special, and thus didn't have to give Nokia more in addition to the same license fees everyone else was paying.
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Well everyone else was paying cash+crosslicense. Apple only wanted to pay cash, and only the same amount as the others. I.e. they wanted to pay less than everyone else.
Hence... ah screw it. You'll just revise history like every Apple fanboi does when confronted with something they don't like.
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It's mostly a question of how broad the standard cross-licensing agreements between phone manufacturers, I guess. I get the impression the reason this ended up in court is because they're broad enough that Apple didn't want to sign them.
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Re:Bad news for Android makers (Score:4, Informative)
Spread some fud will ya?
Apple got sued because they didn't want to pay the licensing fees *everyone* else are paying.
Android isn't going to be sued by Nokia.
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Spread some fud will ya?
Apple got sued because they didn't want to pay the licensing fees *everyone* else are paying.
A complaint about FUD shouldn't be followed by misinformation. Apple always _agreed_ to pay the licensing fees _everyone else_ was paying. Nokia wanted _more_ from Apple than from others, plus some iPhone user interface patents thrown in, and Apple disagreed with that.
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Besides and with the caveat that IANAL, as far as I understand it the new product demand by Samsung is kinda weak anyway, because it was done in reaction to Apple demanding to see Samsung pr
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That implies that the system (in particular, the patent examiners) should be improved, not abandoned.
I don't see why that's bad. If I invent a new widget and patent it, but I don't have the means to mass-produce and market m
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Is your hatred of Apple so much that you have to invent things?
Based on his posts to this story, I'd have thought this was obvious. The poor guy has clearly blown a fuse.
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Your memory needs an upgrade. We discussed this same topic not four days ago [slashdot.org].
Oh, and the $1 billion you mentioned is a figure plucked from the air by you - it was $1.5b *revenue* not profit - big difference.
Again we discussed that 4 days ago, but to refresh your memory: Apple's financial results again. [apple.com] Under assets--> Cash and cash equivalents: $1,193M == $1.193B . Again cash != revenue in accounting. This shows you have little either have understanding of basic accounting principles or you don't care on being accurate.