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  • shabby - Tuesday, April 11, 2017 - link

    Watch out Qualcomm or apple will start making their own modems now.
  • ddriver - Tuesday, April 11, 2017 - link

    Enter the age of patent troll wars. It would be best if the two mutually destroy each other, but I doubt we are that lucky.

    They will have a hard time making their own modems without QCs IP, just like intel and samsung.
  • RBFL - Tuesday, April 11, 2017 - link

    I can't see how you categorize either Apple or Qualcomm as a patent troll. I think their bottom lines show fairly large activity in the areas in which they own patents.

    They may throw their weight around but most of those involved like Samsung are hardly small companies themselves.

    It probably shows that patents aren't really up to the job for insanely complicated devices that must use the technology of 100s to 1000s of patents in a single device.
  • ddriver - Tuesday, April 11, 2017 - link

    Because they troll about patents. Whether or not they do anything else with those patents doesn't change the fact. Both obstruct innovation and extort for money. Especially crapple, with its tons of "rounded corners", "slide to unlock", easing curve animation and similar "innovations" with decades or even centuries of prior art.
  • osxandwindows - Tuesday, April 11, 2017 - link

    If you have something against the patents, it isn't a "patent troll".
  • Diji1 - Tuesday, April 11, 2017 - link

    You clearly are not familiar with what the term "patent troll" even means and now you making yourself look like an idiot by insisting on debating the point..
  • wumpus - Saturday, April 15, 2017 - link

    The fact that "patent troll" has come to have a narrow definition of a way to abuse patent law doesn't absolve other companies of abusing patent law to prevent competition (limiting/taxing competition is pretty much the *only* thing you can do with a patent.

    Don't forget that using literal "patent trolls" to do a companies dirty work is standard action in a patent war. Limited liability comes in handy when you are suing a company for billions (and have next to no assets for a counter-suit).

    Patents are pretty much an obvious failure of IP law. It doesn't help that the patents used in the trial are going to be outrageously bad patents that the patent examiner allow broad wording to slip through the patent and let a lawyer claim the Sun, the Moon, and the stars with the patent.

    The requirements for patents are ghastly low. The "trained in the art" means a newly minted BSEngineering (i.e. typically unhireable, or at least need some real hand-holding on early designs) and hopefully never appearing in the literature (at least that the patent examiner couldn't find). The worst part of it is that once Apple makes their own design, there is *no* way of examining all the outstanding patents that might cover this (you could probably find everything assigned to Qualcom, but certainly not anything they licensed). And anything they might want to leave as a land mine would be assigned directly to a patent troll. So you build what you can and have a patent war with both sides showing the other have violated multiple patents. Patents that were so obvious that Apple probably didn't bother to try to patent such things when they made their design (they probably tried to patent an entire different swath of obvious things).

    Go lookup the Rambus fiasco to see how patent law really works.
  • at80eighty - Tuesday, April 11, 2017 - link

    please stop.
  • Sarah Terra - Wednesday, April 12, 2017 - link

    I agree with ddriver, the only possible reason for the rounded corner patent is trolling. I myself have made rounded corners on web UI elements in many of my own designs since the 90's, as have millions of others. It would be one thing if Apple made the patent for protective purposes to prevent others from trolling them, but they use it whenever possible and it's bullshit.
  • RBFL - Wednesday, April 12, 2017 - link

    Part of the problem is the nature of patents and their form. Posing things in terms of an invention is problematic. Optimal designs are often not inventions but are very hard and expensive to achieve.

    In the industry I am in, you could spend millions to work out where a number of holes need to be and their size. It takes less than a day to white light scan the part. Without some form of protection the OEMs will die out as third party copying is far cheaper and easier. Patents are not an optimal solution to this issue but there is no other available so people seek very limited or trivial patents to provide some cover.

    The fact that Samsung copied their designs and created lookalikes is the reason that Apple tries to patent them.
  • Socius - Monday, April 17, 2017 - link

    Apple only used those patents against a company that literally stole its designs by trying to make as much of an iPhone clone as possible. Samsung and HTC. In general, it's very common for asian countries to simply look at a product, and make something that borrows enough visual cues from it that it looks familiar/similar to the average consumer.

    Patents, just like laws in general, can definitely be abused. However, they do exist for a good reason. And Samsung needs to burn in hell.
  • amosbatto - Sunday, October 15, 2017 - link

    Just like Apple copied a cell phone made by Sony to make the first iPhone. Apple even hired some of the Sony engineers when making the first iPhone. A lawsuit over rounded corners is ridiculous and shows the utter brokenness of the patent system. As a computer programmer, I can tell you that most software patents are bullshit. The idiots in the patent office granted a patent in 2006 for a linked list, which is the most common form of data structure after an array and has been used by programmers since the early 1960s.
  • Socius - Monday, April 17, 2017 - link

    I'm not sure you understand what a "patent troll" is. You just seem to have a problem with the idea of patents in general. Which is idiotic.
  • vladx - Tuesday, April 11, 2017 - link

    Yep, Apple and Qualcomm destroying each other would do everyone a big favor.
  • xype - Tuesday, April 11, 2017 - link

    The funny part would be, when either went bust, an actual patent troll swiping in to collecting their IP.
  • Chaitanya - Tuesday, April 11, 2017 - link

    Pretty sure it will be Samsung vs Intel who will be swooping over this like vultures to collect IP.
  • Sarah Terra - Wednesday, April 12, 2017 - link

    Apple is going to sink itself to be honest, it will take a good long while but it is only a matter of time now before they are knocked off the throne, honestly IM going to predect amazon starting to make more waves. You laugh, but bezos is into everything, from space travel to the grocery market, autmoated factories, drones...cars...just watch. He's coming after google Apple and everyone esle, and amazons revenue stream is extremely diversified. One trick pony Apple is it very high risk.
  • Samus - Tuesday, April 11, 2017 - link

    Apple isn't a patent troll. They just don't like it when they copy something then someone copies them back.
  • Sarah Terra - Wednesday, April 12, 2017 - link

    Alright, lets be more precise apple is a patent bully, i suppose troll is a firm that only sues over patents, but apple actively seeks rediculous patents and uses them to sink competitors. Diarrhea or constipatation...it really doesnt matter either way as you are still dealing with a lot of poop.
  • cocochanel - Tuesday, April 11, 2017 - link

    +1!!!
  • toukale - Tuesday, April 11, 2017 - link

    If this is it for Qualcomm then, there is trouble ahead. Apple looks to have a better case here, since many governments have fined Qualcomm in excess of over $1 billion dollars last year for anti-trust and they were able to do that because Apple cooperated with them. Qualcomm got mad at Apple for their role in helping the government of different countries and held the rebate money. That's not even touching the anti-trust stuff that Apple accused them of and they were fined for.
  • Ariknowsbest - Tuesday, April 11, 2017 - link

    Antitrust fines from China and South Korea can be viewed as political to support local suppliers.
  • ckbryant - Tuesday, April 11, 2017 - link

    Qualcomm is not supplying patents on FRAND terms, this is the main reason why you never see any Samsung processors outside of Samsung's phones because Qualcomm won't license them the patents on Fair, Reasonable, and NonDiscrim Licensing terms. Qualcomm is also not allowing anyone to license their tech to use in others modems; they force a fee so high that it's cheaper to comply and just use their modems. It's no surprise why Apple wouldn't eventually bite the worm and use Intel even though it meant having lower performance if it meant bringing Qualcomm to the table with pricing. However, the Antitrust issues in South Korea and etc may be a political ploy. That I agree with; but you can't say that Qualcomm hasn't used their "brute patent portfolio" to stifle others gains and etc. A patent is just a two decade monopoly if you look at it; theres reasons why Qualcomm wont even tell people how it's Snapdragon chips works or whats the ROP make up or whether it uses certain forms of rendering because if they admit how it works it opens them up to litigation because then their admitting to patent infringement. These days it isn't hard to infringe on a needlessly simple patent which should've never been given. Qualcomm has a wonderful portfolio but they don't normally play ball fair when it comes to licensing the portfolio; maybe they can go into business with United Airlines they both beat their customers.
  • phoenix_rizzen - Wednesday, April 12, 2017 - link

    There are at least two other companies using Samsung Exynos SoCs in phones. They tend to be one generation behind the latest, but they are being used by others.
  • webdoctors - Wednesday, April 12, 2017 - link

    They should just have a thunderdome and whoever leaves wins. 2 parties enter, only 1 exits!

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