Apple reveals its plan to reduce royalties at Qualcomm, according to documents



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By Roger Fingas
Friday, April 19, 2019 at 18:16, Eastern Time (9:16 pm ET)

Apple argued that Qualcomm's patents were not more valuable than those of companies like Ericsson and Huawei, but privately, the company was leasing them – and was aiming to pursue Qualcomm as early as 2014, according to new documents revealed. .

QG Qualcomm

"In terms of engineering, they are the best," said Johny Srouji, senior vice president of Apple hardware, in a March 2015 email quoted by the Washington Post. Another court document, an Apple internal memo dated 2009 and written by an accountant, indicated that Qualcomm was "widely regarded as the owner of the strongest patent portfolio for essential and standards-relevant patents." wireless".

Apple has decided not to sue Qualcomm before the end of 2016, when Qualcomm would have spent billions of dollars as part of their exclusive partnership To post continued. A third Apple document dated June 2016 was titled "Qualcomm Royalty Reduction", with a section explicitly stating "Purpose: Reducing Apple's Net Royalty on Qualcomm".

The strategy was to "harm Qualcomm financially" and "jeopardize Qualcomm's licensing model," the document says. Apple began its first trial against Qualcomm in January 2017, claiming that Qualcomm owed not only royalties rebates of nearly $ 1 billion, but also maintained abusive practices forcing buyers chips to sign patent license agreements.

Apple's lawyer, Ruffin Cordell, made the references to Ericsson and Huawei on Tuesday, the first and only day of the Apple v. Qualcomm. Cordell's argument was that a patent group twice as large as that of Qualcomm cost Apple a fraction of what Qualcomm was asking for. However, Qualcomm's lawyers claimed that internal documents from Apple had revealed that the iPhone maker had intentionally allowed other less expensive patents to give Qualcomm a domineering look.

The idea was to "selectively filter" a group of patent licenses that would serve as "comparable evidence in case of litigation with others", according to information provided by Apple.

The trial ended abruptly after opening statements, during which the two companies announced the settlement of all pending litigation. Apple pays an undisclosed amount to Qualcomm and enters into a new license agreement. UBS analysts have speculated that the first could be worth $ 6 billion and the last, nearly $ 9 per iPhone.

the To post The report suggests perhaps that Apple has not decided to install 5G modems in iPhones 2020, but because it could not achieve this with clear evidence that he wanted to reduce royalties.

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