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Qualcomm Tumbles After Losing U.S. Antitrust Ruling

185 points by jweir 7y ago

ksec 7y ago
FOSS Patents [1] has blogged about it, although I believe the site tends to be a little Pro Apple in its narrative ( And that is speaking as someone who like Apple ), it does provide a decent summary. [1] http://www.fosspatents.com/2019/05/breaking-news-federal-trade-commission.html http://www.fosspatents.com/2019/05/breaking-news-federal-tra...
- wyldfire 7y ago
  > "Qualcomm’s royalty rates are unreasonably high" (Section G). That holding will hurt Qualcomm, though it's common sense. They simply charge a lot more than the rest of the industry--from the perspective of some major OEMs, more than the rest of the industry combined. Gee, I don't know: if their modem is superior, then why shouldn't they get superior share of the market? That's not anticompetitive if they make a better product. BTW if they capture the majority share then it's totally expected that they should get "more than the rest of the industry combined."
  - gvb 7y ago
    Alternate quote from the judge: “Qualcomm’s licensing practices have strangled competition” in certain modem chip markets “for years, and harmed rivals, OEMs and end consumers in the process”. Strangling competition and harming rivals is how you (illegally) get and maintain a superior share of the market.
    - crankylinuxuser 7y ago
      It's not illegal if they're not found guilty. And even if they're found guilty, if punishment is .0001% (or some other laughable minuscule percentage) of their revenue, its not a punishment - it's a cost of doing business.
      - ddingus 7y ago
        That statement is why tons of people hate Oracle viscerally. Just because a thing can be done, doesn't mean it should. Everything costs something. The cost here is everyone else just itching to take company X down. Zero goodwill. Yes, they get to do that kind of thing and so does everyone else pushing back increasingly hard.
      - comex 7y ago
        > It's not illegal if they're not found guilty. ...which they just were. That’s the point of the article.
        crankylinuxuser 7y ago
        And please read the second part of my statement. If the punishments are minuscule, it'll just be a cost of doing business. Or better yet, there may be no fines at all. What happened with Yahoo? Equifax? Mariott? Adult Friend Finder? Target? eBay? Each of those has hundreds of millions of people involved in massive breaches. Do they still exist? Were they fined appropriately for the impact they caused? (Admittedly Yahoo isn't the best of examples, because they were in a downslide with no good market. But nor were they fined for a breach of every account.)
        throwaway2048 7y ago
        What does that have to do with your original point that Qualcomm wasn't anticompetitive in its behaviour?
        comex 7y ago
        I’m not sure why you’re bringing up data breaches, which are totally unrelated to antitrust law. Data breaches are also difficult to sue over in the US, as there’s no law specifically requiring companies to implement security measures or imposing penalties for being breached, although some lawsuits based on common law “reasonable care” claims have gone forward [1]. Anyway, in this case, it looks like the FTC did not seek monetary relief (not sure why), but they sought and received an injunction basically ordering Qualcomm to stop doing what they were doing, with compliance and monitoring procedures to enforce it. That’s not as dramatic as a financial penalty would have been, but the stock hit suggests that Qualcomm nevertheless will suffer as a result. [1] https://wp.nyu.edu/compliance_enforcement/2019/03/06/the-rise-of-cyber-negligence-claims-plaintiffs-find-receptive-judges-by-going-back-to-basics/ https://wp.nyu.edu/compliance_enforcement/2019/03/06/the-ris...
  - mbreese 7y ago
    > if their modem is superior, then why shouldn't they get superior share of the market Royalty rates aren't about their physical modems/chips. It's about their standards essential patent licensing. In this regard, it would make sense that how much they charge for these patent licenses should be more in-line with the rest of the industry.
  - ksec 7y ago
    I didn't read the full report yet ( ~300 pages... ) I believe it was unreasonably high without the Rebate. >from the perspective of some major OEMs, more than the rest of the industry combined. That was referring to Apple, and Qualcomm has shown Apple has some tactics of making its competitor's patents cost look a lot lower, and hence making Qualcomm's patent a lot higher. My take is that Qualcomm, charges a lot, but unlikely to be "more than the rest of the industry combined".
- vatueil 7y ago
  Sometimes there's no better alternative, but your wariness is well founded. FOSS Patents should definitely be taken with a grain of salt. FOSS Patents is written by Florian Müller: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florian_Müller_(author) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florian_Müller_(author) As some may recall, Müller was frequently criticized back in the day for failing to disclose conflicts of interest in his reporting. Quote from HN user gpm: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18333187 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18333187 > I wouldn't trust FOSS patents and the author Florian Mueller as far as I could throw him. He has a long history of being a paid shill, lying about it, and being flat out wrong. > (Paid by oracle) http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120419070127103 http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120419070127103 > (Paid by microsoft) http://techrights.org/2012/08/18/vile-lobbyist/ http://techrights.org/2012/08/18/vile-lobbyist/ > (Paid by apple? I can't find other/primary sources to back up this claim though it does seem likely.) https://mrpogson.com/2012/08/21/apples-paid-shillconsultant-caught-out/ https://mrpogson.com/2012/08/21/apples-paid-shillconsultant-... > (More examples of him being wrong) http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120820111527257 http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120820111527257 > Refuting legal arguments takes time and expertise I don't have. He's good at his job, and I have no knowledge about this case. So while I put no faith whatsoever in his analysis I can't tell you how it is wrong, and yes this is an ad hominem.
totalZero 7y ago
This is the right ruling. These guys are the biggest IP bullies out there in tech. Their entire business model depends on it.
- wyldfire 7y ago
  The big deal from this ruling from AAPL and QCOM's perspective is the terms and scope of the SEP licensing (now must be component-level). Before their recent negotiation, Apple was never even a licensee. These terms have been in place since prior to the first iPhone. There is, IMO, some validity to the claim that Qualcomm's SEP portfolio enables a significantly different device. Their analogy refers to the ipod and the iphone, whose BOM in some cases differs by only the modem and yet it allows them to charge their customers an enormous markup. Arguably the value-add of that part and the patents it leverages must be a large portion of that markup, so perhaps it's fair to consider the device's cost with respect to the royalty.
  - AnthonyMouse 7y ago
    > Their analogy refers to the ipod and the iphone, whose BOM in some cases differs by only the modem and yet it allows them to charge their customers an enormous markup. Arguably the value-add of that part and the patents it leverages must be a large portion of that markup, so perhaps it's fair to consider the device's cost with respect to the royalty. What you're measuring there is the value of the standard and the cellular network as a whole. That includes not only Qualcomm's patents but also everybody else's wireless patents and the entire network infrastructure built by Verizon et al. Which is exactly why standards-essential patents are treated specially. Moreover, the other obvious problem with it is that there are other devices with exactly the same modem technology in them which vary in price from $50 to $1000 based on processor speed, screen size, operating system, etc. and yet Qualcomm is claiming a percentage of the total device including the value of all the components they had nothing to do with.
    - totalZero 7y ago
      Is it possible to develop several parallel technologies per iteration of standards and license them a la carte at a range of prices? In other words, could QCOM effect price discrimination organically without knowing the cost of the full device?
skunkworker 7y ago
So Qualcomm would be forced to have more oversight and accountability that they are playing fair. I’m all for that with a company who has standard essential patents.
- simonh 7y ago
  It also potentially opens up Qualcomm to litigation by licensees that have over-paid. Of course the Apple law suit is the first thing that springs to mind. Apple alleged harm very much along the lines of that described in this judgement. They probably settled because Intel wasn't able to supply modems for their next Phone and they couldn't wait any longer to cut a deal with Qualcomm without risking their roadmap. However, this judgement might re-open a window for them to sue again.
  - Traster 7y ago
    I'm pretty sceptical that Apple would've settled the Qualcomm litigation without some sort of agreement that Apple wouldn't go back and re-litigate later. Even if they did, more litigation would put Apple in a real bind to try and find a new supplier for something Qualcomm now almost has a monopoly on.
    - tooltalk 7y ago
      If Lucy Koh's decision is upheld, QCOM has to re-write all their existing licensing agreement. What monopoly? There are at least two other 5G chip makers, Samsung and Huawei and according to a fairly reliable Apple analysis Ming Chi Kuo, Apple will use both Samsung and QCOM's 5 chips next year.
  - tooltalk 7y ago
    >They probably settled because Intel wasn't able to supply modems for their next Phone I'm very unconvinced that they settled because of 5G or Intel. Apple plotted the world-wide regulatory attacks, the FTC's lawsuit in the Northern District of California, and the pending class-action lawsuit at least two or three years ago. Further, most wireless carriers won't even launch 5G until much later this year, with national wide coverage starting in late 2020 (most likely later). And Apple couldn't wait a couple of weeks? That doesn't make any sense. It's most likely Apple knew they had very low chance of winning outside Lucy Koh's court in the Norther District of California. It was no coincidence that the FTC went shopping around for forum in Apple's backyard. They didn't however foresee the gov't shutdown early this year that delayed Koh's decision and now Apple was walking into QCOM's den in the Southern District empty handed. So the choice was fairly clear: wait for Koh's decision which might not arrive on time, then settle, or fight QCOM. The latter option carries a lot of risk since, in addition to most likely adverse outcome, Apple's unsavory, embarrassing legal or supply-practices would be exposed (ie, potential lawsuits from investors).
jokoon 7y ago
What's the most powerful foss microcontroller/soc? I guess there are very little incentives to build powerful foss chips, or maybe it's too expensive? I guess that's due to the tooling used around building the physical chip? I don't know how much r&d money was spent on the rpi since the chip is proprietary, and if it's doable to spend money to develop a foss soc.
- swiley 7y ago
  FOSS as in the BSP? Freescale’s chips tend to be decent (we’ll see how long that lasts now that Qualcomm owns them.) although I don’t think most of them have modems or GPUs. I liked TI’s stuff but it’s definitely not meant for anything like a modern smart phone. If you meant the SOC itself... I haven’t even heard of any outside of some fringe kickstarter things.
  - klohto 7y ago
    Qualcomm doesn’t own Freescale. Freescale got bought by NXP and the acquisition by Qualcomm didn’t came through, so it’s still owned by NXP. By the way, Freescale doesn’t exist anymore and the chips that are still avail. are reaching EOL
blu42 7y ago
It's ok, the oval office might eventually back them on the international markets..
gniv 7y ago
"Qualcomm Inc. shares fell the most in more than two year" That's technically correct, but misleading. The stock is still 20% higher than it was on April 15, 2019. (57 then, 69 now).
anthuman 7y ago
Fans of volatility must love QCOM. Jumps on the favorable apple ruling a few weeks ago and a few weeks later falls on this ruling.
- tooltalk 7y ago
  Let's not forget about the Huawei ban, less than a week ago! You need a ball of steel to trade in this stock.
latte_machiato 7y ago
Great. Qualcomm is a law company, not a tech company. We need less of these with power.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
thrower123 7y ago
I can't think of Qualcomm without remembering when it rocketed insanely high back before the dot com crash. My dad had inherited a tiny bit of money about then and put some of it in the stock market; I got really into watching the business news after school for a while. Unfortunately he left it in a little too long.
- sockpuppet999 7y ago
  Those were heady days. My wife worked there at that time . One day she told me we were millionaires, I blew it off. A few days later she has documentation and it seems that we are MULTI millionaires just thru options she was granted . That was a wonderful windfall. Very unexpected as well. I've followed the company very closely for reasons I stated above and it took a downfall when Irwin stepped down and handed the reins to his son. That's about the time the H1b really started taking off and qcom took advantage of that, wages fell and although I do know some ppl still there writing Java the newcomers did the job cheaper and qcom started to rot from the inside. They always had thier patents on display as anyone who ever walked into the main office will tell you. I don't blame them for using the legal system to enforce thier patents. I'm sure you would have done the same thing although thier hiring a bunch of ppl from overseas really hurt American Engineers, it helped a bunch of American lawyers

185 points by jweir 7y ago

ksec 7y ago

FOSS Patents [1] has blogged about it, although I believe the site tends to be a little Pro Apple in its narrative ( And that is speaking as someone who like Apple ), it does provide a decent summary. [1] http://www.fosspatents.com/2019/05/breaking-news-federal-trade-commission.html http://www.fosspatents.com/2019/05/breaking-news-federal-tra...

wyldfire 7y ago
> "Qualcomm’s royalty rates are unreasonably high" (Section G). That holding will hurt Qualcomm, though it's common sense. They simply charge a lot more than the rest of the industry--from the perspective of some major OEMs, more than the rest of the industry combined. Gee, I don't know: if their modem is superior, then why shouldn't they get superior share of the market? That's not anticompetitive if they make a better product. BTW if they capture the majority share then it's totally expected that they should get "more than the rest of the industry combined."
- gvb 7y ago
  Alternate quote from the judge: “Qualcomm’s licensing practices have strangled competition” in certain modem chip markets “for years, and harmed rivals, OEMs and end consumers in the process”. Strangling competition and harming rivals is how you (illegally) get and maintain a superior share of the market.
  - crankylinuxuser 7y ago
    It's not illegal if they're not found guilty. And even if they're found guilty, if punishment is .0001% (or some other laughable minuscule percentage) of their revenue, its not a punishment - it's a cost of doing business.
    - ddingus 7y ago
      That statement is why tons of people hate Oracle viscerally. Just because a thing can be done, doesn't mean it should. Everything costs something. The cost here is everyone else just itching to take company X down. Zero goodwill. Yes, they get to do that kind of thing and so does everyone else pushing back increasingly hard.
    - comex 7y ago
      > It's not illegal if they're not found guilty. ...which they just were. That’s the point of the article.
      - crankylinuxuser 7y ago
        And please read the second part of my statement. If the punishments are minuscule, it'll just be a cost of doing business. Or better yet, there may be no fines at all. What happened with Yahoo? Equifax? Mariott? Adult Friend Finder? Target? eBay? Each of those has hundreds of millions of people involved in massive breaches. Do they still exist? Were they fined appropriately for the impact they caused? (Admittedly Yahoo isn't the best of examples, because they were in a downslide with no good market. But nor were they fined for a breach of every account.)
        throwaway2048 7y ago
        What does that have to do with your original point that Qualcomm wasn't anticompetitive in its behaviour?
        comex 7y ago
        I’m not sure why you’re bringing up data breaches, which are totally unrelated to antitrust law. Data breaches are also difficult to sue over in the US, as there’s no law specifically requiring companies to implement security measures or imposing penalties for being breached, although some lawsuits based on common law “reasonable care” claims have gone forward [1]. Anyway, in this case, it looks like the FTC did not seek monetary relief (not sure why), but they sought and received an injunction basically ordering Qualcomm to stop doing what they were doing, with compliance and monitoring procedures to enforce it. That’s not as dramatic as a financial penalty would have been, but the stock hit suggests that Qualcomm nevertheless will suffer as a result. [1] https://wp.nyu.edu/compliance_enforcement/2019/03/06/the-rise-of-cyber-negligence-claims-plaintiffs-find-receptive-judges-by-going-back-to-basics/ https://wp.nyu.edu/compliance_enforcement/2019/03/06/the-ris...
- mbreese 7y ago
  > if their modem is superior, then why shouldn't they get superior share of the market Royalty rates aren't about their physical modems/chips. It's about their standards essential patent licensing. In this regard, it would make sense that how much they charge for these patent licenses should be more in-line with the rest of the industry.
- ksec 7y ago
  I didn't read the full report yet ( ~300 pages... ) I believe it was unreasonably high without the Rebate. >from the perspective of some major OEMs, more than the rest of the industry combined. That was referring to Apple, and Qualcomm has shown Apple has some tactics of making its competitor's patents cost look a lot lower, and hence making Qualcomm's patent a lot higher. My take is that Qualcomm, charges a lot, but unlikely to be "more than the rest of the industry combined".
vatueil 7y ago
Sometimes there's no better alternative, but your wariness is well founded. FOSS Patents should definitely be taken with a grain of salt. FOSS Patents is written by Florian Müller: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florian_Müller_(author) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florian_Müller_(author) As some may recall, Müller was frequently criticized back in the day for failing to disclose conflicts of interest in his reporting. Quote from HN user gpm: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18333187 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18333187 > I wouldn't trust FOSS patents and the author Florian Mueller as far as I could throw him. He has a long history of being a paid shill, lying about it, and being flat out wrong. > (Paid by oracle) http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120419070127103 http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120419070127103 > (Paid by microsoft) http://techrights.org/2012/08/18/vile-lobbyist/ http://techrights.org/2012/08/18/vile-lobbyist/ > (Paid by apple? I can't find other/primary sources to back up this claim though it does seem likely.) https://mrpogson.com/2012/08/21/apples-paid-shillconsultant-caught-out/ https://mrpogson.com/2012/08/21/apples-paid-shillconsultant-... > (More examples of him being wrong) http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120820111527257 http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120820111527257 > Refuting legal arguments takes time and expertise I don't have. He's good at his job, and I have no knowledge about this case. So while I put no faith whatsoever in his analysis I can't tell you how it is wrong, and yes this is an ad hominem.

totalZero 7y ago

This is the right ruling. These guys are the biggest IP bullies out there in tech. Their entire business model depends on it.

wyldfire 7y ago
The big deal from this ruling from AAPL and QCOM's perspective is the terms and scope of the SEP licensing (now must be component-level). Before their recent negotiation, Apple was never even a licensee. These terms have been in place since prior to the first iPhone. There is, IMO, some validity to the claim that Qualcomm's SEP portfolio enables a significantly different device. Their analogy refers to the ipod and the iphone, whose BOM in some cases differs by only the modem and yet it allows them to charge their customers an enormous markup. Arguably the value-add of that part and the patents it leverages must be a large portion of that markup, so perhaps it's fair to consider the device's cost with respect to the royalty.
- AnthonyMouse 7y ago
  > Their analogy refers to the ipod and the iphone, whose BOM in some cases differs by only the modem and yet it allows them to charge their customers an enormous markup. Arguably the value-add of that part and the patents it leverages must be a large portion of that markup, so perhaps it's fair to consider the device's cost with respect to the royalty. What you're measuring there is the value of the standard and the cellular network as a whole. That includes not only Qualcomm's patents but also everybody else's wireless patents and the entire network infrastructure built by Verizon et al. Which is exactly why standards-essential patents are treated specially. Moreover, the other obvious problem with it is that there are other devices with exactly the same modem technology in them which vary in price from $50 to $1000 based on processor speed, screen size, operating system, etc. and yet Qualcomm is claiming a percentage of the total device including the value of all the components they had nothing to do with.
  - totalZero 7y ago
    Is it possible to develop several parallel technologies per iteration of standards and license them a la carte at a range of prices? In other words, could QCOM effect price discrimination organically without knowing the cost of the full device?

skunkworker 7y ago

So Qualcomm would be forced to have more oversight and accountability that they are playing fair. I’m all for that with a company who has standard essential patents.

simonh 7y ago
It also potentially opens up Qualcomm to litigation by licensees that have over-paid. Of course the Apple law suit is the first thing that springs to mind. Apple alleged harm very much along the lines of that described in this judgement. They probably settled because Intel wasn't able to supply modems for their next Phone and they couldn't wait any longer to cut a deal with Qualcomm without risking their roadmap. However, this judgement might re-open a window for them to sue again.
- Traster 7y ago
  I'm pretty sceptical that Apple would've settled the Qualcomm litigation without some sort of agreement that Apple wouldn't go back and re-litigate later. Even if they did, more litigation would put Apple in a real bind to try and find a new supplier for something Qualcomm now almost has a monopoly on.
  - tooltalk 7y ago
    If Lucy Koh's decision is upheld, QCOM has to re-write all their existing licensing agreement. What monopoly? There are at least two other 5G chip makers, Samsung and Huawei and according to a fairly reliable Apple analysis Ming Chi Kuo, Apple will use both Samsung and QCOM's 5 chips next year.
- tooltalk 7y ago
  >They probably settled because Intel wasn't able to supply modems for their next Phone I'm very unconvinced that they settled because of 5G or Intel. Apple plotted the world-wide regulatory attacks, the FTC's lawsuit in the Northern District of California, and the pending class-action lawsuit at least two or three years ago. Further, most wireless carriers won't even launch 5G until much later this year, with national wide coverage starting in late 2020 (most likely later). And Apple couldn't wait a couple of weeks? That doesn't make any sense. It's most likely Apple knew they had very low chance of winning outside Lucy Koh's court in the Norther District of California. It was no coincidence that the FTC went shopping around for forum in Apple's backyard. They didn't however foresee the gov't shutdown early this year that delayed Koh's decision and now Apple was walking into QCOM's den in the Southern District empty handed. So the choice was fairly clear: wait for Koh's decision which might not arrive on time, then settle, or fight QCOM. The latter option carries a lot of risk since, in addition to most likely adverse outcome, Apple's unsavory, embarrassing legal or supply-practices would be exposed (ie, potential lawsuits from investors).

jokoon 7y ago

What's the most powerful foss microcontroller/soc? I guess there are very little incentives to build powerful foss chips, or maybe it's too expensive? I guess that's due to the tooling used around building the physical chip? I don't know how much r&d money was spent on the rpi since the chip is proprietary, and if it's doable to spend money to develop a foss soc.

swiley 7y ago
FOSS as in the BSP? Freescale’s chips tend to be decent (we’ll see how long that lasts now that Qualcomm owns them.) although I don’t think most of them have modems or GPUs. I liked TI’s stuff but it’s definitely not meant for anything like a modern smart phone. If you meant the SOC itself... I haven’t even heard of any outside of some fringe kickstarter things.
- klohto 7y ago
  Qualcomm doesn’t own Freescale. Freescale got bought by NXP and the acquisition by Qualcomm didn’t came through, so it’s still owned by NXP. By the way, Freescale doesn’t exist anymore and the chips that are still avail. are reaching EOL

blu42 7y ago

It's ok, the oval office might eventually back them on the international markets..

gniv 7y ago

"Qualcomm Inc. shares fell the most in more than two year" That's technically correct, but misleading. The stock is still 20% higher than it was on April 15, 2019. (57 then, 69 now).

anthuman 7y ago

Fans of volatility must love QCOM. Jumps on the favorable apple ruling a few weeks ago and a few weeks later falls on this ruling.

tooltalk 7y ago
Let's not forget about the Huawei ban, less than a week ago! You need a ball of steel to trade in this stock.

latte_machiato 7y ago

Great. Qualcomm is a law company, not a tech company. We need less of these with power.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

thrower123 7y ago

I can't think of Qualcomm without remembering when it rocketed insanely high back before the dot com crash. My dad had inherited a tiny bit of money about then and put some of it in the stock market; I got really into watching the business news after school for a while. Unfortunately he left it in a little too long.

sockpuppet999 7y ago
Those were heady days. My wife worked there at that time . One day she told me we were millionaires, I blew it off. A few days later she has documentation and it seems that we are MULTI millionaires just thru options she was granted . That was a wonderful windfall. Very unexpected as well. I've followed the company very closely for reasons I stated above and it took a downfall when Irwin stepped down and handed the reins to his son. That's about the time the H1b really started taking off and qcom took advantage of that, wages fell and although I do know some ppl still there writing Java the newcomers did the job cheaper and qcom started to rot from the inside. They always had thier patents on display as anyone who ever walked into the main office will tell you. I don't blame them for using the legal system to enforce thier patents. I'm sure you would have done the same thing although thier hiring a bunch of ppl from overseas really hurt American Engineers, it helped a bunch of American lawyers