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Qualcomm accuses Apple of giving its chip secrets to Intel
- virtualadmin 8y agoIf only it actually helped intel make better chips.
- 5874-4b22-a4e0 8y agoMaybe Intel was in an even worse position.
- davidf18 8y agoIf only Qualcomm had not charged such high licensing fees that Apple would switch to Intel.
- baq 8y agolooks like an attempt to direct attention from something else. the quotes read like they were said by politicians running for posts instead of a business commenting on a lawsuit.
- slededit 8y agoI'd imagine they were heavily vetted by corporate lawyers given this is the start of a multi-million dollar lawsuit.
- jsjohnst 8y ago> start of a multi-million dollar lawsuit 1. This isn’t the start, it’s been ongoing for over a year 2. Add a few more zeros to that number.
- TheCraiggers 8y agoThose quotes were run through so many lawyer-filters that I'm surprised any signal actually remains, to be honest. This will be one of those lawsuits that last at least a decade, most likely.
- nutjob2 8y agoSounds like an excuse for a fishing expedition. Qualcomm seems to be aspiring to be the new Rambus.
- wyldfire 8y agoWe've heard bits of this before [1] but maybe discovery is confirming some of qualcomm's theories. > Qualcomm claims it has reason to believe Apple flouted its rules, and cites an incident in which an Apple engineer CC'ed an Intel engineer in a message containing confidential material. The chipmaker also says Apple engineers working with competitive vendors merely obscured references to Qualcomm in messages rather than restricting the flow of protected data. [1] https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/11/02/qualcomm_sues_apple/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/11/02/qualcomm_sues_apple...
- baxtr 8y agoThat’s hardly “stealing”, though. Sounds more like “really dumb mistake”.
- wyldfire 8y agoWild speculation but kinda hilarious if Intel asked Apple, "Hey how does design element X work in the existing product?" and Apple said, "Gee, I dunno, let's ask the existing vendor. Hey Qualcomm, how does this part work again?"
- duxup 8y agoThat's not too unusual. I worked at a company where we acquired by one of our "partner's" competitors. An engineer sent out an email including some new management from the acquired company, me, and our partner complaining that our partner was no longer responding in a timely manner ;)
- bluGill 8y agoUnlikely. Intel and Apple both know better than to be that obvious.
- samfisher83 8y agoYou seem to imply Intel and Apple is a person. There are thousands of engineers who work on these products. Are every one of them supposed to be perfect. If legal had to read every engineers email we would get nothing done. I mean there was probably some commands the cpu sent the baseband and I am guessing Apple wanted it to be the same with the intel chip.
- pankajdoharey 8y agoThis is the same Qualcomm whose CEO said Apples 64 bit A7 is a gimmick!
- ksec 8y agofor the record, it was their cmo.
- solarkraft 8y agoWell, is it not?
- monocasa 8y agoIt's not. There's tons of ISA improvements in AArch64 beyond simple 64b registers/address space that help out, particularly for wide, complex, OoO cores like Apple's.
- interdocken 8y agoNo.. ironically he[1] is one of the finalists[2] in the running for the CEO position at Intel. [1]https://www.slashgear.com/qualcomms-cmo-anand-chandrasekher-reassigned-censured-following-a7-gimmick-lambasting-26303193/ https://www.slashgear.com/qualcomms-cmo-anand-chandrasekher-... [2]https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2018/09/05/intel-ceo-candidates-shortlist-intc.html https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2018/09/05/intel-ce...
- stefan_ 8y agoI take it anti-competes and lawsuits over forwarded vague emails are only for the scrubs.
- PascLeRasc 8y agoWhat does Qualcomm have to gain from making public statements about allegations like this? Isn't it like talking to the police voluntarily, where it could only hurt your position?
- protomyth 8y agoStock price, probably. Plus, frighten off anyone else thinking of jumping ship to Intel.
- ksec 8y agoAnd we have reasons to believe either the Intel Modem or its Antenna Design are not working as well as expected. [1] https://www.wiwavelength.com/2018/09/antennagate-reduxs-if-so-what-can-apple.html https://www.wiwavelength.com/2018/09/antennagate-reduxs-if-s...
- snaky 8y ago> Intel needed to deliver a modem that would rival Qualcomm for several years already and possibly had to cut some corners to show faster LTE speeds https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/is-the-mobile-reception-on-the-xs-max-even-worse-than-iphone-x.2140854/page-22#post-26563951 https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/is-the-mobile-reception...
- pankajdoharey 8y agoAssuming there is something that is similar or copied in Intel Chips that came from Qualcomm, isnt it protected by Copyright and Patents already? Besides, Almost everything in hardware can be reverse engineered, there isn't a trade secret than cannot be unravelled just by analysing the output of the chips. Hell Cyrix did just that in the previous century to create better chips than Intel. There isnt a reason why Apple would do something which Intel can do on its own.
- jiveturkey 8y ago> isnt it protected by Copyright and Patents already? No. Generally this is trade secret territory. > Almost everything in hardware can be reverse engineered, Not in time to get a RE'd product to market before it's obsolete. We are talking about very, very complex designs.
- snaky 8y ago> just by analysing the output of the chips That's easier to do with simple digital chips (but not so easy). That's completely different story with mixed-signal.
- product50 8y agoYeah - because a company like Apple doesn't know taking away source code and giving it away to a competitor like Intel is a gross violation of any legal standard out there. And Intel, on their part, would be like sure, give it to us because this is totally cool! I bet this is a narrative fueled up by Qualcomm vs. any basis in reality. If it is real, then most likely this was done inadvertently.
- guyzero 8y ago"If it is real, then most likely this was done inadvertently." That's probably not going to help much, even if it is true.
- CodeWriter23 8y agoYes, Qualcomm is accusing both the Apple and the Intel engineers of wrongdoing. And my money is on their discussion was about some timing or signal format issue that is actually published in a difficult to understand standard somewhere. Which is why an Apple and an Intel engineer thought it was ok to have that discussion with a Qualcomm engineer.
- zyztem 8y agoLast year S/A wrote pretty interesting article about this situation: https://semiaccurate.com/2017/11/06/qualcomm-opens-apple-legal-filing/ https://semiaccurate.com/2017/11/06/qualcomm-opens-apple-leg...
- protomyth 8y agoAs another example, an Apple engineer working on a competitive vendor’s product asked an Apple engineer working on Qualcomm’s product to request assistance from Qualcomm relating to a downlink decoding summary for carrier aggregation. On February 28, 2017, Qualcomm requested an audit under the MSA. To date, despite Qualcomm’s repeated requests, Apple has refused to permit Qualcomm to audit Apple’s compliance with the provisions of the MSA. Qualcomm seeks specific performance of Apple’s obligations under the MSA to provide sufficient information to Qualcomm to confirm that Apple has at all times complied with its obligations related to Qualcomm’s software. Those, if true, are not going to go well in a court. The section gets worse and worse the farther you read.
- bsimpson 8y ago> Apple engaged in a years-long campaign of false promises, stealth and subterfuge designed to steal Qualcomm’s confidential information and trade secrets for the purpose of improving the performance of lower-quality modem chipsets I'm so skeptical whenever I read something like that. Even on small scales, deceit and conspiracy are rare. They seem even more unlikely at a company with the scale, success, and talent of Apple. Coordinated corporate espionage would be a Really Big Deal, and something I doubt Apple would risk over modem performance. (VW's diesel scandal is the closest thing I can think of. Of course, there are other examples in finance like Enron.) Maybe I'm biased from my experience at Google. (I know they're a favorite HN punching bag, but we try really hard to do the right thing regarding PII, privacy, ethics, etc.) I can't imagine anyone with the power to condone a trade secret stealing conspiracy at a company like Apple would do so. "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity"
- davidw 8y agoI agree it's good to be skeptical, but that's hardly the first large-scale shady thing some of these places have been involved in: https://www.businessinsider.com/r-us-judge-approves-415-million-settlement-in-tech-worker-lawsuit-2015-9 https://www.businessinsider.com/r-us-judge-approves-415-mill...
- bsimpson 8y agoFair point. Still, a gentleman's agreement between frienemy titans of industry (though illegal) is understandable: "Don't take my guys, and I won't take yours". I have a hard time believing someone at Apple said "let's engage in a multi-year conspiracy to siphon Qualcomm trade secrets to Intel."
- poooogles 8y ago>Fair point. Still, a gentleman's agreement between frienemy titans of industry (though illegal) is understandable What? No it's not understandable. It's wage fixing and is totally immoral; it works against everything a free market is supposed to be. You might as well move to the communist model and have everyone paid $xxx (hyperbole but the point isn't that far off it).
- cpeterso 8y agoWhat information gleaned from Qualcomm code would actually be useful or applicable to Intel improving their totally different hardware?
- perlgeek 8y agoAnything that interfaces with the outside world (LTA, NFC, Wifi, Bluetooth, ...) or that interfaces with the same components. There are also problems that tend to come up again and again, even in different systems, like stuff related to caching, power management etc.
- tjalfi 8y agoDevice drivers and firmware often contain workarounds for bugs in other products. Here[0] is an example from Windows Vista. [0] https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20060330-31/?p=31723 https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20060330-31/?p=...
- Zigurd 8y agoThe headline doesn't match this statement, which makes more sense: "Apple engaged in a years-long campaign of false promises, stealth and subterfuge designed to steal Qualcomm’s confidential information and trade secrets for the purpose of improving the performance of lower-quality modem chipsets." The complaint could amount to Apple having characterized the performance of Qualcomm's products in a way Qualcomm believes is not allowed. It is unlikely Apple literally broke into Qualcomm's R&D infrastructure and stole source code.
- pyb 8y agoSimilarly, I was expecting the GPU situation to come to a head, meaning : Imagination technologies starting a lawsuit. The fact that this hasn't yet happened, led some commentators to conclude that a confidential Apple-IMG settlement has taken place.
- mankash666 8y agoSteve jobs had reiterated multiple times that good artists copy and great artists steal. Apple stole the 'GUI' and 'mouse' from Xerox, constantly violates scores of OS patents held by Microsoft, and now blatantly steals Qualcomm modem code. Remember when they made a fucking hue and cry over rounded rectangles? The whole $1B with Samsung? Fucking hypocrites
- gsich 8y agoQualcomm is just mad. Their attitude to hide everything behind NDA, even most basic tools and documentation sucks. Examples: QMI Documentation, DM-Port Tools, drivers for all of their Android phone related stuff.
- dang 8y agoUrl changed from https://9to5mac.com/2018/09/25/qualcomm-apple-stole-source-code/ https://9to5mac.com/2018/09/25/qualcomm-apple-stole-source-c..., which points to this.
- swiley 8y agoEhh, the secrets that were shared really should be public anyway. Qualcomm have single handedly distorted the American mobile device market by working trade secrets and patents into the LTE standard.
- astrodust 8y agoQualcomm's ridiculousness with things like CDMA set back the American wireless industry almost a decade.
- ddoolin 8y agoI'd like to learn more, any recommendations/links?
- skunkworker 8y agohttps://www.patentprogress.org/2017/01/27/no-listen-qualcomm/ https://www.patentprogress.org/2017/01/27/no-listen-qualcomm... I wrote about the KFTC action recently, in which the KFTC fined Qualcomm about $850 million and ordered it to stop its abusive licensing practices. The KFTC found that Qualcomm dominated the pool of essential patents for the CDMA cellular phone standard, and it used those patents to monopolize the market for CDMA chipsets: It refused to license to competitors, even though as part of the standard-setting process, Qualcomm had committed to license to anyone on fair and reasonable terms It forced handset companies to separately take a patent license if they wanted to buy Qualcomm chips. That was on top of the purchase price for the chips. It forced handset companies to give Qualcomm licenses to their own patents, for free. https://www.ipwatchdog.com/2017/10/11/qualcomm-antirust-war-patent-licensing-issues/id=88891/ https://www.ipwatchdog.com/2017/10/11/qualcomm-antirust-war-...
- wemdyjreichert 8y agoNobody can yet say for sure, but this smells like sour grapes from an ex-vendor who just lost a very large buyer.
- tooltalk 8y agowhat's up with all these glaring defense of Apple? Apple's success has been narrowly focused in on designing, marketing, and a few technical areas -- wireless tech pioneered and dominated by the likes of Qualcomm, Ericsson, etc for decades is not where Apple's strength lies. Further, Apple has been accused and convicted of orchestrating ebooks price-fixing ($450M fine in 2016) and colluding with other tech companies not to poach each others' employees (another $450M fine for all tech companies involved in 2015). A US jury also found Apple willfully infringed VirnetX's IP's (ie, facetime VPN OD). So yeah, sure, Apple, however big or successful, is fully capable of engaging in unethical, anti-competitive/trust, illegal activities to gain advantage over others. Also, let's not forget, Qualcomm's lawsuit (or counter-suit) is just a small subplot of the greater feud between Apple and the wireless industry. Apple, having challenged the wireless industry for a full decade and lost or settled every lawsuit (and failed to squeeze their wireless suppliers), allegedly colluded with mobile OEMs around the world to launch regulatory attacks against Qualcomm. Sure, there are some aspects of Qualcomm's licensing practices that are clearly illegal/anti-competitive (especially respect to their chipset competitors), but Apple's direct accusation (eg, kickback for exclusivity, violation of FRAND -- unreasonable royalty basis and rates) is probably just blatant lies that Apple fabricated to rile up regulators in South Korea, EU, and Taiwan. It's no wonder that Qualcomm is so pissed off and they are engaged in a bitter lawsuit over frivolous IP theft that Qualcomm would have looked away otherwise.
- drb91 8y agoMostly I imagine it's just distaste for Qualcomm, related or not.
- threeseed 8y ago1. We have no evidence that Apple did anything wrong. And so until a court rules either way we should default to them being innocent. 2. Qualcomm is unquestionably more dodgy than Apple. They have been convicted of market abuse and have engaged in anti-competitive practices for quite some time now. I don't think anyone should feel sympathy for them. 3. You have made unfounded allegations that Apple lied to countries around the world. So I would question your bias in this case.