Apple Halts Qualcomm Royalty Payments During Legal Battle

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Brice McIntosh

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Jan 16, 2015
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@Jake Hall.

So if this is something to hate Apple for, you must hate the FTC which has filed charges against Qualcomm for monopolistic reasons. Whether you like Apple or not, they are not the only company that uses and suffers the effects of Qualcomm. Samsung, Intel and Mediatek would be the big ones and I'm sure that they will be following this very closely. And by closely, I would wager that they are on Apple's side with this lawsuit. Qualcomm has been accused of charging customers for licenses to patents that don't pertain to the products they are making as well as abusing their patents to prevent rival chipmakers from competing to be in these devices. Competition is good for everyone.
 

ammaross

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"The dispute in question is Apple's claim that Qualcomm abuses the popularity of its products to force other companies into restrictive and expensive licensing agreements."

Pot, meet kettle.
Remember how much Apple wanted per Samsung phone?
 

techy1966

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Yea considering Apple is known to be the worst company for doing things like this as well as abusing it's market power to say to another company they are doing or using the same type of practices seems a bit messed up to me.

I do not care who is at fault here in this dispute I just think Apple has some pretty big brass nutz to accuse another company for doing something that they themselves do also and most of the time far worse than any other company out there.
 

none12345

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Apr 27, 2013
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Man for a compnay with such an absurd profit margin on this products, this seems like such a childish move.

I hope qualcomm gives them some serious late fees on their bill. And they will likely have a reason to sue them if their stock price tanks as well.
 

falchard

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The FTC based it's charge on poor data. How can you have a monopoly when you have competition? It's not like Qualcomm is the only one developing base-band technology. It's not even a large market share. I think it's something like 54%. It's quite a stretch to say Qualcomm is using monopolistic practices.
 

DerekA_C

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They both suck birds of a feather flock together. But seriously * Qualcomm is over-ratted I'd rather have the option of Samsung putting chips in phones other then Samsung phones. They literally do monopolize the mobile market for chips. For Apple it is overpriced by a long shot with outdated hardware constantly and since they went Unix/Linux modified OS to charge an extra-premium for freeware software because it requires proprietary hardware is bad business and not the future of mankind open and standard saves money but more importantly RESOURCES AND TIME.
 

mrmez

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54% market share is MASSIVE, no matter how small the market.
A monopoly doesn't mean there is zero competition.

To put it in perspective, compare smartphone market share. If you combine Apple, Samsung, Huawei and Oppo to form one company. The'll still have less market share than Qualcomm.

Also, the fact they've had to pay BlackBerry nearly a billion dollars, is quite damning.
Certainly a factor that accelerated BB's demise.
 

therealduckofdeath

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May 10, 2012
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I expect Apple to get a complete sales ban of all affected devices served to them pretty soon. Literally stealing another company's IP for profits the same time they brag about having a 200 billion bank account is unacceptable.
If they get away with this, what stops us from stealing Apple products and sell them for pure profits on eBay?
 

atavax

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i don't get how Apple is avoiding paying the royalties. Third party makes product, part of the cost is the royalties to Qualcomm. Apple is like, yeah, we're not going to pay for the royalties party, but we still want it. So they pay less money for it. How does that work? I'd like to go to the store and buy a blu ray but be like, yeah, i'm not going to pay for the royalties. How on earth is this possible?
 

USAFRet

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How?
Apple has deep pockets and lots and lots of lawyers.

They'll blow it off until someone or some govt bitches enough. The they'll pay pennies on the dollar to make it go away.
 

mrmez

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What if you walked into a shop and said you want to buy 25 million blu-ray players EVERY MONTH.
And if you couldn't strike a deal with them, there's a dozen other companies more than willing to be paid less TEMPORARILY to secure such a lucrative contract.

I love the free market where you can choose to sell whatever you want at any price, and consumers can choose to buy or not, but there's something scumbag-ish about saying "$100 bly-ray players, unless you have a nice car, then they're $150". And yeah, you can shop somewhere else, but I'd like to think we at least WANT to live in a world where business is still conducted fairly.
 

jasonf2

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I am not a lawyer but shouldn't qualcomm be able to get a court order to freeze its IP from being used in apple products as well? If not what is the point of patent protections?
 

mrmez

Splendid
Probably. But it's a pretty complex situation.

Firstly, any action like that would take years to be finalised even if Apple didn't appeal the ruling.
Secondly, a court wouldn't likely hear any case if legal action that could effect the outcome was lodged prior, and still pending.
For example, if somehow Qualcomm did get a sales injunction BEFORE Apple's case was decided, then Apple wins it's case, they could then go to court AGAIN and sue for damages. A cluster fk for sure.
If QC loses, then they'll obviously never be able to get an injunction.

Considering BlackBerry won nearly a billion, I guess Apple should win their $1B case too.
If they lose, I'm sure there will be some retaliation from QC, wether it's increased royalties or damages for loss of reputation etc.

Messy for sure, and I'm really 50/50 on this.
Companies should be able to charge what they want, but at the same time, as a business owner, I wouldn't feel right jacking up the price when I see someone in a Ferrari pull up.
 
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