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Damn it! We almost made it a full week without a lawsuit filed by or against Apple. Thanks a lot Ericsson.
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Ericsson Sues Apple Over Phone Patents In Europe
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Bone_Enterprise
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Europe, say no more.
rat
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'MURICA. Say no more.
That is Apple for ya, Whine and sue other companies for using their patents tring to get their products banned. But when it comes to paying for patents they use they stone wall and stall for years. Apple thinks they can use anyone's tech for free, make truck loads of cash all without paying for stolen tech they use.
Apple isnt the only one, Google and Samsung are masters at that. Maybe even better than Apple.
The issue isn't Apple using stolen tech, it's that they can't agree on a new arrangement. Their old agreement expired in January, and Ericsson upped the price to something that can mean 250 milion to 1 billion in fees per year. Apple isn't contesting the patents, they are contesting the price Ericsson wants for standards-essential patents, which are supposed to be priced reasonably.
I'm pretty sure, if it was anyone else, and the price went up considerably they would also sue.
With their FRAND patents, they cannot "up the price" without some serious repercussions. Ericsson also said they wanted the courts to decide on final price, leaving the pricing out of their hands, and Apple did not want anything to do with that either. Apple basically wants to have reduced rates because of their volume and also want to pay the fee based on the cost of the components, not based off the price of the phone (which every other company does, Apple thinks they are special). For an example, Company "X" pays $100million a year to Ericsson total for all of their phones (but sells much less phones than Apple, lets say they pay $5 per phone). Apple wants to pay the same $100 million as that is what they believe the value of such patent is (since that's what company "X" is paying), but because of their massive volume, they want a reduced rate per phone to reach that $100million mark and nothing more.
Hypocritically, Apple wanted $24 per phone from Samsung on non-essential patents such "bounce-back when at bottom of page" and the shape of a phone. These Ericsson patents are essential patents that basically make a cellphone a cellphone, Apple's patents are non-essential and are worth substantially less. Apple is going to be raked over the coals over this one, no way they win this one at all. I foresee them paying out just like they did with Nokia. I hope additional penalties are enforced to set an example and precedent as this has happened far too often with Apple and their belief they are special. They want FRAND rates (or less), but do not contribute their technology/patents to the other players in the field by not cross-licensing. So why should they think they deserve a better rate when they contribute nothing?