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The Almighty Buck The Courts Apple Technology

Qualcomm Says Apple Is $7 Billion Behind In Royalty Payments (bloomberg.com) 116

Posted by BeauHD from the behind-schedule dept.
Last Friday in federal court, Qualcomm lawyer Evan Chesler said Apple is $7 billion dollars behind in royalties. "They're trying to destroy our business," he said. "The house is on fire and there is $7 billion of property damage right now." Bloomberg reports: Qualcomm wants as many as 56 patent-related claims and counterclaims cut from a lawsuit with Apple and its Asian manufacturers, arguing that these are just a sideshow to the broader licensing dispute between the companies. Apple, through its manufacturers, halted royalty payments to Qualcomm last year and the tech giants' showdown has escalated into some 100 legal proceedings around the world. Apple argues that Qualcomm is using its intellectual property to bully customers into paying excessive royalties even as it tries to duck scrutiny over whether its patents are valid. "You can't just let Qualcomm walk away from this," Apple's lawyer, Ruffin Cordell, told the judge at Friday's hearing.
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Qualcomm Says Apple Is $7 Billion Behind In Royalty Payments More

Qualcomm Says Apple Is $7 Billion Behind In Royalty Payments

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  • Conflicted (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Hard to say which of these companies is more evil at this point.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by xpiotr ( 521809 )

      Hard to say which of these companies is more evil at this point.

      It's a little like Turkey calling out Saudi Arabia over the journalist killing.
      It's the right thing to do, even Erdogan is clearly not a good guy.

      • The right thing for the wrong reasons: Turkey is just taking a page from Putin's playbook and driving a wedge between the somewhat uneasy alliance between S.A. and the West.
        • I would say Saudi Arabia murdered a journalist, and Turkey squeezes their balls for it. As any country should in that situation.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by mentil ( 1748130 )

          To be fair, Saudi Arabia has only been an ally to the US because we wanted to secure their oil, rather than because we have anything in common or like their government. Thanks to fracking, we have basically no dependence on them any more, and they're more of a burden we'd be better off shedding. Their recent liberalization is probably in part to help stave off a 'liberation'.

          • Saudi was created by the west and is expected to act this way.
            Not exactly an accident. This is what happens when you create dictatorships and monarchies.

          • To be fair, Saudi Arabia has only been an ally to the US because we wanted to secure their oil, rather than because we have anything in common or like their government. Thanks to fracking, we have basically no dependence on them any more, and they're more of a burden we'd be better off shedding. Their recent liberalization is probably in part to help stave off a 'liberation'.

            Fracking isn't the answer to everything and its get you gas not oil. Oh and earthquakes.

    • Re:Conflicted (Score:5, Insightful)

      by mangastudent ( 718064 ) on Tuesday October 30, 2018 @06:39AM (#57560533)

      Hard to say which of these companies is more evil at this point.

      Heh, although I'd put both at a lower tier of evil than a lot of the tech Left.

      However, from what I've read elsewhere, this boils down to Apple claiming patent exhaustion [wikipedia.org]. That is, when Intel makes chips based on Qualcomm's patents (and they did reduce a lot of the concepts to working technology), and pays them for that privilege, Qualcomm can't then try to extract further payments downstream. It's akin to the first sale doctrine with copyrights.

    • Re:Conflicted (Score:5, Insightful)

      by stealth_finger ( 1809752 ) on Tuesday October 30, 2018 @07:47AM (#57560709)

      Hard to say which of these companies is more evil at this point.

      It's Apple.

      • Definitely. There is a contract in place that says "pay the fucking royalties".

        If I disputed how much tax I was to pay and refused to pay it, claiming that an ongoing case was going to sort it all out I'd get sent down because the current situation is "pay the fucking tax". If subsequently it turns out I paid too much, then I can use that ruling to get my money back.

        Pay your fucking bills, Apple. You can afford it, and if you win the case then you can take Qualcomm to the cleaners.

        • Except that's not exactly what is being claimed by Apple (and others). Qualcomm licenses their IP so that companies can make chips but other companies must pay Qualcomm directly if they buy chips from a licensee. What Apple is claiming is that Qualcomm wants licensing on chips even though Apple doesn't buy those chips from Qualcomm.

          As an analogy if ARM licenses to Samsung to make chips, ARM doesn't require licensing from anyone who buys a Samsung ARM chip. Qualcomm's complicated licensing agreements involve

          • Which Apple has already agreed to, hence "stopping payments", which means they had been making them before. Thus there is a contract.

            • Cite your evidence

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Darth ( 29071 )

              under the agreement apple had with qualcomm, qualcomm gave apple rebates on those payments. however, qualcomm stopped giving the rebate as a punitive measure for apple cooperating in the korean fair trade commission's investigation into qualcomm's licensing practices. so, it sounds like qualcomm was in breach of that agreement first and apple stopping payments under the agreement was appropriate.

              the korean fair trade commission ultimately fined qualcomm $853 million. the ftc has also sued qualcomm for the s

    • IP law is not a moral issue, it is one of law. Both companies are playing games with the law - trying to get what they can out of it. It's not about good vs. evil, it's about people responding rationally to the incentives they have in front of them. Ultimately, it's about whether the law is having the intended effect or not and - short of illegal behavior - that is where the remedy lay.

    • Not really. It's Apple. There are alternatives out there (you can get completely Qualcomm-free cellphones). Apple wants the best (Qualcomm) but doesn't believe they have to pay what Qualcomm wants. I guess we could all "pull an Apple", walk into an Apple store, pick up a Macbook, offer $500, and when the "genius" doesn't accept - we walk out with it, and say we're going to sue to put it at a price that WE think is fair...

  • Apple says they owe nothing (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gnasher719 ( 869701 ) on Tuesday October 30, 2018 @06:40AM (#57560535)
    Actually, the matter is in court and a court will decide how much Apple owes. $7bn is not what Apple owes, itâ(TM)s what Qualcomm would want in their wildest dreams.
    • Steve Jobs was good at presenting Apple and Apple products in a sensible manner.

      The present Apple CEO, Tim Cook, apparently does not have much ability to direct communication about a company.

      (Jobs was very abusive in other ways. For example: The memoir by Steve Jobs' daughter makes clear he was a truly rotten person whose bad behavior was repeatedly enabled by those around him [businessinsider.com]) (Aug. 26, 2018)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by quenda ( 644621 )

      well, to Apple, $7b *is* nothing. They could probably raise it by looking under the cushions at Apple Park.

    • > itâ(TM)s
      Does your browser automatically try to convert the apostrophe character to the curly-quote version and if so, what browser is it? I do web dev and this seems unusual behavior.

  • Who to believe? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by reanjr ( 588767 ) on Tuesday October 30, 2018 @09:19AM (#57561065) Homepage

    Do you believe the company who essentially invented wireless technology or do you believe the company that invented rounded corners?

    • Do you believe the company who essentially invented wireless technology

      Except Qualcomm was hardly the only company "inventing wireless technology". Their biggest claim to fame is reducing code-division multiple access [wikipedia.org] (CDMA) to practice, but there are many other ways to split up spectrum. E.g. GSM started out with time-division multiple access [wikipedia.org] (TDMA), a frequently slot is divided into time slots, each user gets one.

    • Do you believe the company who essentially invented wireless technology or do you believe the company that invented rounded corners?

      Neither. You have to be a useful idiot to believe any corporate PR.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by brennz ( 715237 )
      Marconi is spinning in his grave
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:Who to believe? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Anubis IV ( 1279820 ) on Tuesday October 30, 2018 @01:39PM (#57562965)

      How about believing both sides? It's an uncontested fact that Apple is withholding payments. Both sides will tell you that. What the reporting here is creatively omitting, however, is any mention of the fact that Apple received permission from the court to place the contested payments, with interest, in an escrow account until the case is resolved, which is standard practice in situations such as these.

      Keep in mind how this case started: Qualcomm failed to pay Apple $1 billion in rebates that were owed, seemingly for no reason at all. Those rebates were supposed to cover the fact that Qualcomm was double-dipping with their licensing fees by charging Apple's manufacturers a licensing fee (which then got passed on to Apple) for the right to manufacturer, then charging Apple a licensing fee for the right to sell the exact same IP. So long as Qualcomm kept making those rebate payments, Apple didn't complain. It was only when Qualcomm stopped making those payments that Apple sued for what they were owed and petitioned the court to let them keep the funds in escrow until the conclusion of the case. When Qualcomm pushed back, Apple raised the stakes by using recently-established precedent regarding patent exhaustion to assert that Qualcomm never had the right to demand those payments from Apple in the first place.

      But hey, don't let me stop you from relying on logical fallacies to make up your mind. Appeals to authority can be fun. Loaded questions too. To each their own.

    • Don't know about the wireless but the rounded corners is invented by your mommy!

    • Given how the matters being decided don't have to do with wireless technology or rounded corners but rather boring arse legal contracts, I'll go with whomever the courts tell me to believe.

  • This coming from Apple is so rich that it could be hilarious, if it wasn't so totally not hilarious.

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