> Apparently the r&d costs in this space are higher then lawyer fees. Otherwise why wouldn't they dump some money into r&d and get some patents of their own to

> Apparently the r&d costs in this space are higher then lawyer fees. Otherwise why wouldn't they dump some money into r&d and get some patents of their own to cross license with Qualcomm. I'm sure there's plenty of cross-licensing already, but Qualcomm gets close to 80% of its pre-tax profits from patent licensing, so they have asymmetric incentives and are in very different bargaining positions. (Source: http://www.economist.com/news/business/21715705-its-biggest-customer-apple-suing-it-1bn-qualcomm-again-under-attack-living http://www.economist.com/news/business/21715705-its-biggest-...) I'm highly skeptical of patents as a whole, so I do find it hard to cry tears of sympathy for patent warmongers like Intel, Samsung and Apple, even if Qualcomm is a particularly bad actor.