Apple Dealt Legal Blow as Jury Awards Qualcomm $31 Million (cnet.com) 47
Apple violated three Qualcomm patents and should pay the chipmaker $31 million for infringing on its technology, a jury decided Thursday, giving Qualcomm momentum as it heads into another legal skirmish with the iPhone maker next month. From a report: Qualcomm, which filed the suit in July 2017, alleged Apple had used its technology without permission in some versions of its popular iPhone. The jury awarded Qualcomm the full amount it requested at the start of the two-week trial, which was held in San Diego. One disputed Qualcomm patent covers technology that lets a smartphone quickly connect to the internet once the device is turned on. Another deals with graphics processing and battery life. The third addresses technology that shifts traffic between a phone's apps processor and modem. The $31 million in damages -- or $1.41 per infringing iPhone -- is a drop in the bucket for Apple, a company that briefly became a $1 trillion company last year. But it marks an important victory for Qualcomm, burnishing its reputation as a mobile components innovator. The win also lends credibility to the notion that much of the company's innovation is reflected in iPhones.
$31 million in pocket change (Score:3)
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Yeah, I read TFS too, but thanks for summarizing it.
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So what you are saying is, the next fine needs to be considerably larger?
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It's my understanding that large companies may have in-house lawyers providing support, but bring in outside firms to represent them in court.
So this likely did cost Apple something.
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There's a chance they were looking to establish legal precedent, and if they would have won, it would have been a bargain at 5x the cost.
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$31 million is like a couple of hours of profit for Apple. This is a slap on the wrist.
The symbolic victory is more important than the money. While for Apple this is about money, for Qualcomm this about it's very existence. It's business model is a licensing model that is considered unfair and abusive by it's partners. Every victory in these disputes justifies the existence of it's model.
And btw, it's not about $31M. That's pay owed to them in the past, from July 6 2017 to today, in license fees. It also means the license is justifiable, so Apple owes in the future too.
Biting the hand that feeds it... (Score:2, Insightful)
Apple has the ability to design and manufacture their own chips - they've been ramping up on that over the last few years. This is a good way for Qualcom to not see another cent from Apple in the future. Or maybe they've already seen that writing on the wall and are just trying to get what they can while they can.
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They can still sue them for patent infringement if they don't license their patents.
The alternative would be not getting anything at all. I'm not a fan of patents but I can understand their rationale.
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AAPL stopped paying patent royalties you say? Sounds like starting a battle to me.
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Only if you don't understand anything about the case in question, which is clearly where you are coming from.
Not really that surprising with your history of anti-Apple shilling.
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Typical faith-based troll from a typical AAPL shill.
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Here's how:
1. Stop buying Qualcomm products, replacing them with one of Qualcomm's competitors.
2. Stop paying Qualcomm for patent royalties, as they are no longer shipping Qualcomm's products.
This isn't really that hard to suss out.
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From the A6 onwards, Apple's ARM cores are designed by Apple, not off-the shelf cores like Cortex.
Re: Biting the hand that feeds it... (Score:1)
In other words, a proprietary fork, which is how Apple has always rolled.
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By "move on" do you mean, move on to the next jury award, so that evidence of a flippant attitude from AAPL may be used to guide jurors in assessing a more effective level of punitive damages?
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and yours isn't?
Round corners. (Score:5, Funny)
Why does everybody like it so much when Apple takes one on the legal chin? Two words: "round corners".
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I have further three words: swipe to unlock.
Fuck Apple.
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It's still a fucking travesty.
Round corners: $1bn.
Technology required to make the device function: $fuck all.
This just further damages the credibility of the patent system.
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Normally I wouldn't post this many days later, but I want to take a few minutes to correct some misconceptions you seem to be under, and while you should take what I'm saying with a grain of salt, the only thing I want to convince you of with this post is that you should brush up on some of this stuff so that you can contribute more effectively to the conversation next time.
This just further damages the credibility of the patent system.
To start with, it sounds like you don't understand the distinction between utility and design patents, otherwise you'd have realized th
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While your points are all accurate, they're also all irrelevant.
Differentiating between design and utility patents does not change that the patent system is broken, and the outcomes in Apple's patent cases highlight it in a painful way.
Sure, the $1bn is down to a mere $300m. Only 8 times the amount award for actual innovative patents. Sorry, not accepting that defence.
Momentum? I think you've got that backwards... (Score:5, Insightful)
The summary's comment that this ruling is "giving Qualcomm momentum" strikes me as being rather clueless. This $31 million judgment is coming the day after a preliminary ruling against Qualcomm that says they owe Apple all $1 billion in rebates that they promised—but failed— to pay Apple. That's the case that matters. Suggesting this $31M ruling is giving them momentum in the $1B case that's already been ruled against them on a preliminary basis is like saying that a fly can change the course of a car by smashing into its windshield.
Moreover, Apple issued software updates months ago that worked around all of the claims. Qualcomm's experts even acknowledged in court that Apple wasn't still violating them, so they have no impact on Apple's future business, and they certainly don't have any impact on a case regarding whether Apple is owed the $1B that Qualcomm was contractually obligated to pay.
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No, that's not the case that matters. The $1 billion awarded to Apple was money that Qualcomm was supposed to reimburse to Apple in exchange for Apple not suing them. I haven't been following that one closely so I don't know the judge's reasoning. But it ultimately has nothing to d
$31 Million? (Score:2)
Apple can find that in its junk drawer next to the old Ketchup Packets and Chopsticks.
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iTunes gift certificate. Paid in full.
Re: $31 Million? (Score:1)
They certainly don't have TTL gates or random tantalum capacitors in their junk drawer. Just the kind of boring crap pinks usually keep.
Learn (Score:2)
It's the only way to be sure.
As the proverb says ... (Score:2)
What goes around corners comes around corners.