This has been one of Cedric's weaker posts. Firstly, this round of mobile patent wars (defined as in "involving Apple") didn't start in April 2011 with Apple suing Samsung. Nokia sued Apple in October 2009 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8321058.stm), and Motorola sued Apple in October 2010 (http://www.engadget.com/2010/10/06/motorola-suing-apple-for-patent-infringement/), though Motorola was apparently expecting an Apple lawsuit. You may go back even further.
Secondly, Google wants to continue to charge 2.25% per-unit royalties for "essential patents", as announced in a letter to standards organizations (http://www.theverge.com/2012/2/8/2784786/google-promises-to-license-motorolas-standards-patents-fairly-after). "Essential patents" are required to build smartphones (e.g., 3G, voice etc.). Vendors must license them in fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory terms to competitors if they want these patents to become part of telecom standards (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_and_non-discriminatory_licensing). Motorola wanted these exact 2.25% from Apple for one / all (???) FRAND 3G patents (http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2012/02/motorola-wants-225-of-apples-sales-in.html). The problem here is that Apple thinks that 2.25% is neither fair, reasonable nor non-discriminatory. Apple's reason: Apple doesn't build cellular radios, it buys them (Infineon before, now from Qualcomm). Motorola has a patent license agreement with Qualcomm, Apple pays Qualcomm, and Motorola collects 0% from Apple. Now Apple claims that in January 2011, Motorola terminated its license agreement with Qualcomm just for Apple and then wanted to collect the royalties directly from Apple (http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2012/02/apples-us-antisuit-lawsuit-against.html). If this is right, then this doesn't sound "non-discriminatory" to me, but that's for the courts to decide. And how much is 2.25% anyway? The average iPhone price is $660 as of Q4/2011, the iPad one around $600 (http://www.asymco.com/2012/01/26/price-competition/). That makes 2.25% being $14.85 and $13.50. These numbers sound familiar... Oh yes, Google's Chief Legal Office lashed out at Microsoft for "seeking $15 license fees for every Android device" (http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/08/when-patents-attack-android.html). I guess seeking $14.85 for every iPhone is ok now when you spend $12 billion on a phone maker that has lost money nearly every quarter for the last five years (in this diagram, Motorola's profits are the little green areas on top of Nokias profits in 2010: http://www.asymco.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Screen-Shot-2012-02-03-at-2-3-12.37.20-PM.png). Thirdly, yes, life is unfair to Motorola because it owns a lot of FRAND patents that it can't collect much dough from (which is why I think Google seriously overpaid for Moto), whereas Apple (and Microsoft) can do with most of its patents what it wants to do. And yes, Apple is hypocritical by asking for FRAND licensing standards (http://www.mobileburn.com/18483/news/apple-asks-europe-to-standardize-frand-patent-licensing-for-mobile-devices) while suing Samsung for highly questionable design decisions. But Motorola itself agreed to the FRAND terms for its essential patents, so it can't take a 180 degree turn and collecting big time on Apple - the EU already investigates Samsung which did the same (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/01/eu-launches-official-investigation-into-samsungs-3g-frand-patent-lawsuits.ars). -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/javaposse/-/YgUHbB5TsZAJ. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en.
