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  • patel21 - Wednesday, May 22, 2019 - link

    If this ruling goes down, it would boost Mediatek hugely. And we do indeed need competition badly.
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  • melgross - Wednesday, May 22, 2019 - link

    This is a very significant ruling, one that the appeals court isn’t likely to overrule. As usual, this link provides the most succinct and useful explanation:

    http://www.fosspatents.com/2019/05/breaking-news-f...
  • Raqia - Wednesday, May 22, 2019 - link

    Quoting the likes of Florian Mueller (a biased blogger and Apple dev. and not a trained lawyer) when it comes to patent decisions is like asking the fox for his opinion of henhouse security. The decision by Koh utterly misunderstands the nature and scope of Qualcomm's inventions. Her draconian remedies are likely to be stayed, and her decision appealed in the end as the Supreme Court has demonstrated in Ohio v. AMEX that consumer harm has to be demonstrated in rulings.
  • Reflex - Wednesday, May 22, 2019 - link

    Gotta second this, Mueller has been a source of misinformation for well over a decade now, and is wrong an awful lot. I think this case has a good chance of holding up on appeal, Koh is a reasonable judge with a good track record historically, but it won't be because of Florian's takes.
  • Raqia - Wednesday, May 22, 2019 - link

    There were many glaring issues with the theories presented by the FTC. The market defined for this case was "premium standalone modems" where Apple was the only customer. Many chip manufacturers had their own designs which were integrated into SoCs in this era, and Qualcomm actually had declining market share, far from a monopoly when the issue is given proper context.

    Licensing costs for the software defined standards were also not proved to be higher as a result of Qualcomm's superior implementations in this artificial market. Qualcomm didn't dump modems below cost and discounts were often for valuable considerations outside of SEP licensing costs. OEMs had a choice of going with other implementers and it wasn't proved such OEMs' specific SEP licensing costs were higher as a result.

    There was also a complete omission of evidence from the end of 2016 onward when the only customer in this market Apple moved exclusively to Intel and stopped paying royalties entirely. It should be clear who had the market power here and how much of an advantage Intel had been granted; in the end, Apple's pivot back to Qualcomm was due to its technical superiority rather than Qualcomm's abuse of its FRAND obligations.
  • anactoraaron - Wednesday, May 22, 2019 - link

    Qualcomms superior implementations....

    Reads like qualcomm pr. Shill
  • Raqia - Wednesday, May 22, 2019 - link

    For the artificial market of standalone premium modems defined in the trial this was true. Don't take my word for it, ask Johnny Srouji of Apple:

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/04/...
  • ksec - Thursday, May 23, 2019 - link

    >Qualcomms superior implementations.... Reads like qualcomm pr. Shill

    So you are suggesting Qualcomm didn't have the best modem? Can you name one that perform anywhere as good or better?
  • ksec - Thursday, May 23, 2019 - link

    This, the Lexmark case continue to be reference which is a rather simple in concept, and yet being applied to the Qualcomm case which is 10 times more complex.
  • id4andrei - Wednesday, May 22, 2019 - link

    This is the end of Qualcomm's licensing business. R&D into the next gen standards cannot be sustained by a percentage of the chip instead of the whole device.
  • Raqia - Wednesday, May 22, 2019 - link

    Only a small number of essential patents are practiced on the modem itself, many are practiced in the device, on the cell towers, and in the interfaces between all of these parts; those can be split off as required by Koh's judgment and the rest licensed at the device level. As they are assessed off of the first $400 of a device's retail cost, they really constitute a discount off a fixed cost for makers of devices that have lesser data requirements and make less intensive use of standards. There are also many non-essential patents unencumbered by FRAND that Qualcomm own outside these essential patents; recently a jury awarded $1.41 per device for 3 of these (presumably 3 of the better ones).

    Furthermore, the nature of standards is separate from implementation: the same modem can be configured to talk to a cell tower in multiple ways and Qualcomm's innovative and technically sound standards are what the industry chose despite being patented by Qualcomm and subject to licensing fees. It may alter licensing, but it is unlikely to affect Qualcomm's model when many OEMs actually prefer the status quo and sourcing solutions to difficult problems from someone who is more efficient at it than themselves.
  • magreen - Friday, May 24, 2019 - link

    "Qualcomm's innovative and technically sound standards"
    ---
    I agree with the comment above. You sound like a shill.
  • Raqia - Saturday, May 25, 2019 - link

    Or maybe I actually have some understanding of the nature and scope of these standards and haven't swallowed a story spoon fed to me (and the FTC) by Apple. They're not just a bunch of gate keeping measure designed to just keep out competition, they really are brilliant inventions that the industry adopted IN SPITE of the fact that they were subject to licensing because of their value to the industry in spectrum conservation, speed to market and technical soundness.

    Many people, the judge included misunderstand exactly what's being licensed. The standards are not the modem, the standards are a kind of electromagnetic grammar enabling things like multiple users communicating with cellular towers, tower hand off, error correction, power conservation etc. As such, modems can be configured to process standards not invented by Qualcomm and Qualcomm's standards can also be processed by things like x86/ARM CPUs or FPGAs rather than modems (although it'd be slower and hotter.)
  • s.yu - Wednesday, May 22, 2019 - link

    If the US actions are so politically charged they'd certainly postpone this until Huawei's done for good.
  • Skeptical123 - Wednesday, May 22, 2019 - link

    The reality is the us is a function democracy (mostly...) so while there are definitely political moves there are also independent law enforcement acts taken like this one that are not directly related to politics. While it might be strategic for the US to hold on actions again Qualcomm we don't have a central all powerful planing party (like China) to take such actions.
  • IUU - Saturday, May 25, 2019 - link

    It's not about QQom, violating anti-trust laws. It's about QQom kicking Apple's ass in every aspect where Apple's bread and butter is, smartphones.

    Let's be frank . No-one has ever given a damn , about justice, but all were interested in money , no matter under the disguise of ethics or lawfulness.

    Because, just give it a serious consideration even if for a few moments. QQom may well be guilty of more than it is already charged. But if a break is not put to its current acceleration Apple is as good as dead. And the latter is also not exactly the model of ethics and lawfulness too. But no charges are being pressed at the moment.

    I wish most was guided by law. Most "corrective" measures are oppotunistic and almost always hide intentionality.

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