I think I'll need to stock up on Popcorn.
Well, that escalated quickly: Qualcomm demands iPhone, iPad sales ban in America
Qualcomm is upping the stakes in its legal war against Apple by accusing the Cupertino idiot-tax operation of infringing six patents. The California chip designer today said iPhones and iPads using Intel's 4G wireless chips are effectively using a half-dozen Qualcomm inventions without permission. Now, Qualcomm is asking the …
COMMENTS
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Friday 7th July 2017 07:53 GMT EddieD
Humongous upvote for the Threads reference, probably the most realistic, and chilling, representation of the country after a nuclear strike.
Scared the crap out of me when I saw it as an impressionable teenager, going back to it in middle age wasn't much better.
Back on topic - I've been wondering if something like this would occur ever since Apple started to make their own chips.
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Friday 7th July 2017 12:31 GMT Anonymous Coward
>Humongous upvote for the Threads reference, probably the most realistic, and chilling, representation of the country after a nuclear strike.
>Scared the crap out of me when I saw it as an impressionable teenager, going back to it in middle age wasn't much better.
Try watching Threads as an impressionable teenager who spent many/most weekends in Sheffield and living just outside the blast radius...
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Friday 7th July 2017 00:05 GMT Kevin McMurtrie
8,698,558
Surely some audio amp nut has already done this many years ago: A broadband precision Class AB amp with current sensors driving a low quality Class D amp providing low frequency power assistance. I was experimenting with this when I was in college and there was no such thing as too much power. I probably would have gotten it working if I could have afforded high frequency power components back then.
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Friday 7th July 2017 20:16 GMT Kevin McMurtrie
Re: 8,698,558
8,698,558 is mixing AB and D amps to provide a modulated power source to the RF transmitter. A whole lot of that patent looks like old tech that could have existed in the 1990s or earlier.
Class AB is an analog push-pull configuration that has very high precision and nearly infinite bandwidth, but it's resistive. Any difference between the power rails and the output becomes heat. Class D is a pulse width modulated switching configuration that has a very limited frequency response and lots of distortion but nearly perfect efficiency. Combining the two results in excellent bandwidth and precision plus excellent efficiency for low frequency and DC components.
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Friday 7th July 2017 00:09 GMT Herby
Pretty soon...
This might escalate to Nuclear Weapons or something equivalent. Then again, maybe I'm reading the North Korean missile thing incorrectly.
But the advice of stocking up on popcorn is a pretty good one. I see salvos coming in from both sides. Both sides have lots of $$$ to spend on legal beagles.
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Friday 7th July 2017 05:14 GMT ckm5
Re: "Apple will no longer use any Qualcomm chips in future products"
Yeah, that's what Adobe thought too, so did Nokia and Motorola.
I'm sure that their shareholders will cheer when markets knock billions off their valuation.... IMHO, we've just seen peak Qualcomm, esp. with the Feds largely agreeing with Apple.
Everyone in the industry hates Qualcomm, they've been dicks for years, and would be happy to see them taken out.
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Friday 7th July 2017 06:07 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: "Apple will no longer use any Qualcomm chips in future products"
Everyone in the industry hates Qualcomm, they've been dicks for years, and would be happy to see them taken out.
In effect they're quite capable of talk themselves out.
Qualcomm's strong grip on the IPR behind CDMA was the thing that destroyed their dominance of mobile networks in the USA and stopped them ruling the entire world's networks. The USA went with CDMA, no one else did; it was GSM globally.
GSM is an open standard (in that you can get the docs for free), and the standards tell you everything, with a well defined package of FRAND patents that lay behind it. So it was cheap and easy for people to design, build and operate GSM networks. GSM also had many technical advantages in the field of network design and expansion; no cell breathing.
If you wanted to use CDMA, Qualcomm apparently were pretty vague when divulging technical information; using CDMA meant buying support from Qualcomm.
I think things improved with CDMA2000, but most countries went with UMTS. Now 4G, a very un-Qualcomm standard, is used everywhere.
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Friday 7th July 2017 07:43 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: "Apple will no longer use any Qualcomm chips in future products"
Intel has massively increased their investment in their LTE implementation in the last couple years. There's a little catching up to do, but by next year there will probably be little practical difference between them.
Arguably there already is little difference, providing you don't need CDMA. Sure, Intel's LTE implementation doesn't hit the same peak speeds as Qualcomm's, but is anyone really going to care if their iPhone 8 manages "only" 400 Mbps LTE downloads with the Intel chip instead of 1 Gbps with Qualcomm's? I know I wouldn't.
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Friday 7th July 2017 09:40 GMT DropBear
Re: "Apple will no longer use any Qualcomm chips in future products"
"...is anyone really going to care if their iPhone 8 manages "only" 400 Mbps LTE downloads with the Intel chip instead of 1 Gbps with Qualcomm's? I know I wouldn't."
Considering I'm nowhere near able to hit 1 Gbps between two of my own boxes both sitting on the same desk merely on account of one of them being a Windows box (and you better believe I tried everything down to obscure registry hacks and driver packet size settings - only a Linux live CD worked...) - well, I suspect no they wouldn't. /rant
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Friday 7th July 2017 00:43 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: I don't see how this is Apple's problem
You can say all kinds of things, but lying to a judge is usually not a good idea, especially if the lies can be proven to be lies. Given how anal Apple usually is in every other aspect of business, I kind of doubt that they are ignorant of how Intel's chips work. Aren't they the ones always claiming that they've engineered deep internal changes to the workings of chip sets in order to optimize performance, or some such rubbish?
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Friday 7th July 2017 05:46 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: I don't see how this is Apple's problem
Big business can be a dirty game it seems.
It is perfectly possible that Apple are unaware of the patent liabilities surrounding Intel's modems. The contract between Apple and Intel may have a clause guaranteeing that there are no patent issues, in which case this becomes Intel's problem.
There may also be a clause that specifically guarantees nothing, in which case this is Apple's problem. And having bought Qualcomm for so long, mostly (?) trouble free, it's possible that mistakes have been made in whatever diligence process was used.
These patents perhaps were never mentioned in any contract Apple have with Qualcomm; kinda like hidden landmines left in the IPR landscape by Qualcomm just in case Apple ever walked away from buying from Qualcomm. They’ve just exploded, and now the courts will see if they've scored a hit on Apple.
Apple's contract with Qualcomm could have a clause about being granted a licence to all of Qualcomm's patents, but I doubt it; Qualcomm would be giving away patents on things utterly unrelated to mobile modems. So I suspect that relevant Qualcomm patents were listed in the contract, and Apple used this list to assess the buy-ability of Intel's modems, and didn't look at Qualcomm's other patents to see if they'd been hoodwinked by Qualcomm.
That would be a particularly dirty trick on Qualcomm's part, but then they're the smaller party in a huge deal with a company known to use its corporate might with impunity. It's well known that doing business with Apple can be dangerous to one's health.
Imagination might have similar tactics up its sleave.
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Friday 7th July 2017 01:20 GMT Alan Penzotti
Why does the final product price determine the royalty?
If Apple were smart, it would re-introduce the iPod shuffle with the Qualcomm chipsets, but unused in implementation. Produce 100B of these units. Sell or give away 80B of these units, and then scrap 10B of these units to salvage the chipsets for their higher priced kit, and destroy 10B of these units as "unsaleable/unsalvageable." That way the cost per chipset would be cheaper.
Another way would be to use these iPod Shuffle units as a concealed "plug in module" inside these final revenue shipping units.
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Friday 7th July 2017 09:53 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Why does the final product price determine the royalty?
"Why does the final product price determine the royalty?" because that was what was agreed.
Whilst Qualcomm's contract could be seen as being unreasonable and an abuse of monopoly, Apple signed, so all this Qualcomm are bad people doesn't really apply.
US business goals are always to gain a monopoly by any means availible and then screw your customers, using the US courts to defend it.
Apple and Qualcomm are both guilty so you know the only people who are going to be punished are their customers. Since that is not me then I am just going to sit back and enjoy the show.
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Friday 7th July 2017 23:54 GMT David 132
Re: Why does the final product price determine the royalty?
Did you actually think about that before you posted?
Spend £10 producing a bit of kit, throwing it in the bin to save maybe £1
No no, I think he's onto something - it sounds like a great way for Apple to make a small fortune.
Of course, it presupposes that they start beforehand with a large fortune...
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Friday 7th July 2017 02:47 GMT LazLong
Apple's hypocritical
"They supply us with a single connectivity component, but for years have been demanding a percentage of the total cost of our products – effectively taxing Apple's innovation," Apple said via a spokesperson."
Like how Apple taxes software developers' innovation 30% of the cost of apps sold on the App Store? Hypocritical bastards. This is one of the reasons I dislike Apple so.
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Friday 7th July 2017 05:43 GMT Steve Davies 3
Re: Apple's hypocritical
Lets look at it in a slightly different way.
Say that Ford uses Brand X tyres on a Ford Focus and pays Brand X $500 for using five of them.
Brand X makes money and everyone is happy.
Now this upstart Ferrari comes along and uses the exact same tyres in their new F99332 Special that costs a cool $2M a pop.
Brand X say, sorry no. I want $50,000 per tyre, ie. the came percentage of the end user cost of the car. Ferrari say fuck no and move to Brand Y tyres who will sell them equivalent tyres for $500 a set.
Brand X don't like this and sue Ferrari 'because we always charge a percentage of the final cost of the car on top of a fee to the company that puts the tyres onto the rims. That fee is for using our IP with their rims.
Is that right? This double dipping as it is called AFAIK, happens nowhere else.
If QC charge say Google a flat licensing fee for using essentially the same chip for us in a Pixel why can they say to Apple, give us a percentage of the iPhone cost EVEN if you are not using our chips?
Patents and especially on the mobile area work on FRAND. That means QC have to use the same terms with ALL their customers no matter who they are. They can't just milk Apple (even though they mostly deserve it) because Apple kit is mostly (see the Pixel and S8 prices...) the most expensive and therefore profitable on the market.
IANAL and all that.
Around 10 years ago this was very well discussed on Groklaw and some seasoned IP lawyers and academics all came down on the side of FAIR licensing and against a percentage of the final device price.
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Friday 7th July 2017 11:43 GMT CrazyOldCatMan
Re: Apple's hypocritical
licensing terms are entirely between Qualcomm and Apple.
Actually - the licensing would be between Intel and Qualcomm (if Intel is using QC IPR in their chips).
If Apple is buying those chips from Intel then Qualcomm have already been paid their patent fees and have no case against Apple (as an end user).
The analoguos situation is the patent troll that sued end-users of fax machines because their 'IPR' appeared to cover the devices. Wrong target - sue the manufacturers. But they have deep pockets (and lawyers) whereas end-users often don't and are an easy target.
I think the term is 'patent exhaustion' but IANAL. Someone who knows better will be doubtless along shortly..
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Friday 7th July 2017 20:37 GMT Anonymous Coward
@CrazyOldCatMan
You'd think it works that way, but doesn't always. Qualcomm may specifically not license its patents to Intel, going after those who use them instead. That would have a beneficial effect for Qualcomm of making Intel's cellular chips more of a pain to use and therefore decreasing their market share.
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Friday 7th July 2017 10:06 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Apple's hypocritical
You car analogy is a bit crap.
Ford use brand X. Brand x say you can buy the tyres with tread pattern Q for 1% of the resale value, regardless of cost. Ford enter a contract to buy them at that cost.
Ferrari come along and Brand X say we want to charge you 2% for the tyres using Pattern Q. Ferrari agree to this and sign the contract.
Ferrari realise Ford are only paying 1% percent and demand the same. Brand X say no as you agreed to pay 2%.
Ferrari switches to Brand Y and pays a set agree price.
Brand Y have an agreement with Brand X, that they can use the same tread pattern Q but only on cars valued less than £10K
Ferrari buy these tyres knowing this agreement is in place, but purchase them anyway.
Brand X sue Ferrari for not paying the fees to uses that tread pattern as originally agreed
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Friday 7th July 2017 07:46 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Apple's hypocritical
You realize Google "taxes" software developers the exact same 30%, right? Where's your outrage over that?
Did you think that software developers selling programs for Windows got to keep the entire sales price you paid when you bought a nice shrinkwrapped CD at Best Buy? They didn't even get 30% of it, let alone 70%. And most of them didn't get shelf space on Best Buy, whereas every software developer who follows the rules and pays $99/yr gets "shelf space" at the App Store.
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Friday 7th July 2017 08:48 GMT LazLong
Re: Apple's hypocritical
You realize Google "taxes" software developers the exact same 30%, right? Where's your outrage over that?
I don't have a problem with that because Google allows other app stores, such as Amazon's, to be installed onto Android devices. Apple doesn't allow anything to be installed that doesn't come from their App Store and give them their cut. Closed systems are ultimately detrimental to consumers by trying to prevent competition and stifling innovation, among other ills. And please don't give me the closed-garden security drivel; it's beneath The Reg's audience.
Did you think that software developers selling programs for Windows got to keep the entire sales price you paid when you bought a nice shrinkwrapped CD at Best Buy? They didn't even get 30% of it, let alone 70%. And most of them didn't get shelf space on Best Buy, whereas every software developer who follows the rules and pays $99/yr gets "shelf space" at the App Store.
No, I know better having worked computer retail 31 years ago, and still being capable of a reasonable amount of accurate observation today. But, second verse, same as the first: Computer retail is far more open than Apple's App Store, with developers not being prevented from marketing competing technologies to the OS platform developer. And yes, I'm aware of having to pay for shelf space and prime display real estate.
As for the percentage of retail prices developers get to keep, the price of software for traditional productivity platforms is higher, though I haven't bothered to Google app store revenue vs traditional channels.
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Friday 7th July 2017 12:23 GMT gnasher729
Re: Apple's hypocritical
"Like how Apple taxes software developers' innovation 30% of the cost of apps sold on the App Store? Hypocritical bastards. This is one of the reasons I dislike Apple so."
As a developer, yes, Apple takes 30% of my money (and thank you for repeating the "tax" meme that Microsoft invented ten years ago), but then I have sales in dozens of different countries, and trying to do that without Apple would be an absolute logistical nightmare.
BTW. Many commercial apps are free, and Apple pays nothing. Like the eBay app, or Uber app, or lots of apps for different stores and banking.
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Friday 7th July 2017 06:13 GMT Anonymous Coward
QC is in deep legal do-do
They have lost recently in South Korea and are being sued by several other governments for their business practices as well as the US FTC.
As they say, 'there is no smoke without fire' and 'there is something rotten in the state of QC'.
Apple isn't squeaky clean by any means but to have several countries taking you to court (as in the case of QC), they can't all be wrong as evidenced by the loss in SK.
QC are also on shaky ground in the USA after the recent Supreme Court case with Lexmark and refilling printer cartridges. They came down against Lexmark for what one poster has mentioned 'double dipping'.
i.e. Charging a license to use the IP in a product AND wanting to charge it again and again for each refill. The court said that the license went with the product and not the Cartridge.
I guess that this is what Apple are hoping applies to them. Other users of QC chips will be looking on with interest (and might be tacitly supporting QC)
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Friday 7th July 2017 12:27 GMT gnasher729
Re: Karma
"When I read this headline, I heard the voice of angels singing. it was glorious.
cheers
Samsumg
p.s. big party at my place, Saturday."
You know that Samsung has exactly the same problem with Qualcomm and is in court with them? So in this particular case, we can be sure that Samsung is siding with Apple and Apple siding with Samsung.
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Friday 7th July 2017 07:01 GMT Detective Emil
IANAL
The FTC is investigating Qualcom for possible monopolistic practices involving, inter alia, “an anticompetitive tax on the use of rivals’ processors”. There’s also a good chance that, if Intel considered that it needed to use the techniques described in Qualcom's patents in its baseband silicon, it licensed them, so exhausting Qualcom’s right to collect on its IP. Consequently, I don’t think this is likely to fly at the ITC. (If Intel hasn’t licensed the patents, yet is infringing, it could be argued that this is a result of different anticompetitive behaviour suspected by the FTC, namely that Qualcom “refuses to license standard-essential patents to competitors” — although Qualcom is careful to claim that these particular patents are not SE). And yes, Qualcom could go after Intel if it hasn’t licensed the patents, but patent law means it can go after whom the hell it likes (or, in this case, dislikes more).