Reply to post: Re: Given the inevitable appeals

Re: Given the inevitable appeals

My own view - when Apple do as much technical research and development as Qualcomm then they have a right to complain - at the moment it it like someone who buys a Rolls Royce then complains that it costs more than a Ford Focus.

That's nothing like the case.

The case is more like:

All the car manufacturers get together to standardise on a common set of control interfaces to driving the car, i.e. (for a manual), 3 pedals that are clutch, brake, throttle. And a steering wheel to change the angle of the wheels. And different companies have already developed specific elements of these and have patents on them. But all the companies agree on the common standard, and the companies that have patents on elements of this system agree to license to anyone who asks their patent for on a Fair, Reasonable, Non-discriminatory (FRAND) basis. So in this case Rolls Royce is one of the patent holders who offered and agreed to license their patents for this system under FRAND, along with multiple other patent holders (e.g. Toyota, Renault, GM), to allow everyone to standardise on the same set of control interfaces.

However, Rolls Royce who holds some (some, not all) of the key patents, decides after everyone has agreed to this and have committed to it in such a way as it is infeasible to back out now, that its patents are more critical than anyone else's , therefore they:

1) charge more for their patents (that they had previously agreed to apply FRAND to) than other companies who are contributing patents without which the system also couldn't work (breaching the Fair and Reasonable tenets);

2) requires that you also license other of their patents that are unrelated to these control systems, that you don't want to use, say a welding method that you aren't using, or a screw design that you aren't using, an engine mounting/isolation bracket that you don't use, and so on (breaching the Non-discriminatory tenet, as well as the Fair and Reasonable ones, i.e. you must also license these if you want to license that).

I'm not saying that the above is what is happening, that's up to the courts to rule on, however those are the types of allegations being made (amongst others).