Apple Sues Qualcomm For Roughly $1 Billion Over Royalties (cnbc.com) 54
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: Apple is suing Qualcomm for roughly $1 billion, saying Qualcomm has been "charging royalties for technologies they have nothing to do with." The suit follows the U.S. Federal Trade Commission's lawsuit against Qualcomm earlier this week over unfair patent licensing practices. Apple says that Qualcomm has taken "radical steps," including "withholding nearly $1 billion in payments from Apple as retaliation for responding truthfully to law enforcement agencies investigating them." Apple added, "Despite being just one of over a dozen companies who contributed to basic cellular standards, Qualcomm insists on charging Apple at least five times more in payments than all the other cellular patent licensors we have agreements with combined." Apple also alleges that once it began cooperating with Korean authorities' antitrust investigation of Qualcomm, the company withheld $1 billion in retaliation. Korean regulators fined Qualcomm $854 million for unfair trade practices in December.
No honor among thieves (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.fool.com/investing/... [fool.com]
It's Apple. Pay more. (Score:2)
Nope (Score:4, Funny)
Apple's highly innovative inventions, namely flat rectangle with a screen on it, and an arrangement of icons in a grid clearly constitute innovations of incalculable value. Where as Qualcomm's patents simply involve leading edge telecommunication developments that far surpass most of their rivals in performance. Obviously, nothing special. Surely not noteworthy enough for their extensive paten portfolio, one of the largest in the wireless world, to justify 5x the royalty rates.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Apple's highly innovative inventions, namely flat rectangle with a screen on it, and an arrangement of icons in a grid clearly constitute innovations of incalculable value. Where as Qualcomm's patents simply involve leading edge telecommunication developments that far surpass most of their rivals in performance. Obviously, nothing special. Surely not noteworthy enough for their extensive paten portfolio, one of the largest in the wireless world, to justify 5x the royalty rates.
And yet WiMax far outperformed anything the Q was doing at the time and is still competitive with LTE today. This is because lots of other companies can do telecommunication tech too and in particular, the computer companies liked 802 data networks,which make much more sense than the ITU protocols if you're sending more IP traffic than voice traffic and so 802.16 came into being. It was great while it lasted. I still have my WiMax dongle and it was fast at a time that 3G phones were a joke in terms of fast
Re: (Score:3)
according to some RANDOM dude who had nothing to do with WIMax standards ;)
Actually I was the primary author of the WiMAX/802.16 PKMv2 security protocol.
Also I'm the primary designer of current Intel RNGs.
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I figured, but those ACs all look alike.
Re: (Score:2)
Apple's highly innovative inventions, namely flat rectangle with a screen on it, and an arrangement of icons in a grid clearly constitute innovations of incalculable value. Where as Qualcomm's patents simply involve leading edge telecommunication developments that far surpass most of their rivals in performance. Obviously, nothing special. Surely not noteworthy enough for their extensive paten portfolio, one of the largest in the wireless world, to justify 5x the royalty rates.
Qualcomm's highly innovative inventions, namely minor improvements to original work by Tesla, Marconi, et al, ...
Re: (Score:2)
Apple's highly innovative inventions, namely flat rectangle with a screen on it, and an arrangement of icons in a grid clearly constitute innovations of incalculable value. Where as Qualcomm's patents simply involve leading edge telecommunication developments that far surpass most of their rivals in performance. Obviously, nothing special. Surely not noteworthy enough for their extensive paten portfolio, one of the largest in the wireless world, to justify 5x the royalty rates.
Qualcomm's highly innovative inventions, namely minor improvements to original work by Tesla, Marconi, et al, ...
Tesla and Marconi's highly original work? Surely you mean those simple expansions of work originally done by Thales of Miletus [wikipedia.org], Ben Franklyn, and Faraday.
Give me a break. Next think you know, they will be claiming Alexander Graham Bell did something innovative by connecting wires and coils with magnets in them. Losers
Re: (Score:2)
Apple's highly innovative inventions, namely flat rectangle with a screen on it, and an arrangement of icons in a grid clearly constitute innovations of incalculable value. Where as Qualcomm's patents simply involve leading edge telecommunication developments that far surpass most of their rivals in performance. Obviously, nothing special. Surely not noteworthy enough for their extensive paten portfolio, one of the largest in the wireless world, to justify 5x the royalty rates.
Qualcomm's highly innovative inventions, namely minor improvements to original work by Tesla, Marconi, et al, ...
Tesla and Marconi's highly original work? Surely you mean those simple expansions of work originally done by Thales of Miletus [wikipedia.org], Ben Franklyn, and Faraday. Give me a break. Next think you know, they will be claiming Alexander Graham Bell did something innovative by connecting wires and coils with magnets in them. Losers
Touché, mine Hair!
Re: (Score:2)
Actually I agree... 98% of patents are in fact not innovative inventions noteworthy for patenting. And our patent system is fundamentally broken and largely just a means of large companies maintaining dominance.
But I couldn't fit all that in the original satire.
Re: (Score:2)
Actually I agree... 98% of patents are in fact not innovative inventions noteworthy for patenting. And our patent system is fundamentally broken and largely just a means of large companies maintaining dominance.
But I couldn't fit all that in the original satire.
Actually, you could have; but it would have seriously ruined the "meter" of your ridiculously oversimplified, Apple-Hating rant.
Re: (Score:2)
That's the thing about FRAND patents and standards; it is only supposed to go one way, for everybody.
Otherwise, something else would be the standard.
Make slashdot frosty again (Score:2)
That's a huuuuuge lawsuit.
Re: (Score:2)
I predict a Beowulf Cluster of lawsuits will quickly scale things up until hot grits pour out all over the skyrocketing popcorn stocks.
Qualcomm (Score:1)
When I've seen the name Qualcomm in news headlines, its technology related 50% of the time, and trade violations related 50% of the time. They are the smartphone processor market leader and they got it with cutthroat tactics. South Korea fined them over $800 million in December. http://www.anandtech.com/show/10942/south-korea-qualcomm-anti-trust-fine
Meanwhile, they ignore royalties owed to Ericsson (Score:2, Informative)
for real, bonafide, genuine inventions in radio-communication (unlike their own go-sue material, shapes of buttons on a screen and what direction they slide in), and they refuse paying Ericsson simply because they are confident their dishonest American courts will side with them so they can get away with it.
A bunch of dishonest fuckers and hypocrites is what Apple's management are.
Who cares —Where's my Mac Pro Tower (Score:2)
No more machines made for vegetarians. Give me my data truck.
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Seriously! Not sure why a company that big and rich can't roll out updated hardware every year or so. The lineup of desktop stuff is quite sad and embarrassing.
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Try some simple algebra. Let C=cartel. Let O=oligopoly. Solve for L=lucre.
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Seriously! Not sure why a company that big and rich can't roll out updated hardware every year or so. The lineup of desktop stuff is quite sad and embarrassing.
The last MacBook Pro was 2015. The new one is 2016. Sounds like "about a year" to me...
The last iMac was late 2014. The new one was supposed to be about the same time in 2016, but, from what I have read, Intel is behind in releasing the CPUs they want to use. Look for a mid 2017 release. Hopefully, that will tricke-down to a new Mac mini...
As for the Mac Pro, again, it is Intel that has been holding up the works. There have been new Xeons released; but, not only are they not significantly faster, a lot
Re: You made your bed with patent wars Apple (Score:1)
Hahaha, you funny. Apple is an amazing patent troll. They, however, were smart enough to buy mindshare.
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I loved Eudora. A great mail client.
OK, I'm confused... (Score:3)
Just keep innovating Qualcomm (Score:2)
Enough FFS (Score:3)
Is anybody, like me, sick of all these patent squabbles?
Welcome to the 21st century shitpile.