>“Intel is ready, willing, and able to compete on the merits in this market that Qualcomm has dominated for years,” Intel said in a posting on its website. “But Qualcomm has maintained an interlocking web of abusive patent and commercial practices that subverts competition on the merits.”
>Samsung claims its in-house chip unit is artificially held back by Qualcomm’s unwillingness to license its technology.
I don't know the details of the patents in question, but I assume they are hardware patents. In any event, the idea of either Intel or Samsung complaining about some other company subverting competition is hilarious. But I guess that's how the game is played at this level.
> the idea of either Intel or Samsung complaining about some other company subverting competition is hilarious. But I guess that's how the game is played at this level.
Agreed. I think this is what's happening:
Big tech companies have realized they need to expand into other markets (intel and samsung being prime examples). The only markets left that are big enough are monopolies protected by patents, with Qualcomm being a prime example.
Entirely new markets are less interesting because they're not big enough. Even with massive growth, it will take too long for them to become big enough. A.I. is a maybe, but that market is hardly proven. The money in A.I. might be in reforming companies from the inside instead of selling products to those same companies.
There's going to be more money in invalidating patents and moving into the industries that suddenly opens than there is in actually benefitting from patent royalties. Winning the war on patent trolls would speed this process up.
Once people realize that companies that derive a large percentage of their income from patent portfolios are just big dead rotting corpses waiting to be dismantled, the world will be a better place.
While Qualcomm holds a lot of wireless patents and they are entitled to make money for what they have contributed, they also agreed to declare their patents as part of the ETSI CDMA, LTE standards. This is beneficial for Qualcomm because now everyone HAS to use and license their patents, so they have guaranteed income. But, at the same time, they are also required to license their patents at fair and reasonable terms regardless of who licensees are.
Qualcomm violated their FRAND obligations in two very blatant ways. First, they REFUSED to license their patents to competing baseband makers, like Intel, Samsung, and other baseband makers. KFTC last year also found out that Qualcomm barred Samsung from marketing and selling their own AP/baseband chips in certain market (US) for some 20 years. So it also runs a foul of US anti-trust/anti-competitive laws.
If Qualcomm wants the kind of legal patent monopoly enjoyed by pharma's for instance, they need to keep their patents proprietary, and not declare them to SSO's. Qualcomm is trying to force everyone to license their tech as SSO's standards, then break every rule they agreed to uphold to maintain their dominance.
Sorry, I'm not sure how what you said contradicts what I said (as in "No, that's not what's happening here"). It's certainly useful, specific information, but it doesn't negate my broader point.
> Big tech companies have realized they need to expand into other markets (intel and samsung being prime examples).
I'm not sure if Samsung is a good example of this. They have been making Exynos chips for a long time, and other ARM SoCs before that. So its not like they have suddenly awakened and trying to break into new market.
well, you are absolutely right that you have no idea why Qualcomm is being sued.
No, they are not hardware patents. They are mostly wireless that Qualcomm declared to be standard under FRAND terms.
Qualcomm's direct competitors are directly harmed by Qualcomm's monopolistic pratices -- such as not granting licenses to their competitors when Qualcomm promised to do so in violation of FRAND. It not only violates ETSI rules, the standard setting organization governing wireless standards like CDMA and 4G, but also US's anti-competitor/trust laws.
> I don't know the details of the patents in question, but I assume they are hardware patents. In any event, the idea of either Intel or Samsung complaining about some other company subverting competition is hilarious.
Qualcomm is in the IPR and in the chip market. The others are buyers of IPR and sell chips implementing said IPR. The key is that Qualcomm is self-dealing(!) here. That position is a very powerful one and the way they strike individual agreements and openly or indirectly bundle things raises a lot of questions.
Bundling stuff from a position of power is what gets attention by the FTC - prominent examples are Windows Explorer and the IBM monopoly case way back.
>Samsung claims its in-house chip unit is artificially held back by Qualcomm’s unwillingness to license its technology.
I don't know the details of the patents in question, but I assume they are hardware patents. In any event, the idea of either Intel or Samsung complaining about some other company subverting competition is hilarious. But I guess that's how the game is played at this level.