8 ms·

Apple requested 40$ royalties for every samsung phone sold

34 points by bluelu 14y ago

oliwarner 14y ago
They can request whatever they like. Doesn't mean they'll get it.
michaelfeathers 14y ago
The document lays claim to "Java, OS and OO" as Apple innovations?
- taligent 14y ago
  What ? Nowhere in the article did it imply that. It meant some of the implementations of those rely on Apple innovations i.e. patents. Which given how old Apple is, all of the patent acquisitions along the way and some pretty innovative work by NeXT it isn't inconceivable. Doesn't mean that those patents will be enforceable.
  - michaelfeathers 14y ago
    See slide #8 and the notes for slide #8.
- cyberp 14y ago
  The iPhone popularized a lot of best-of-breed technologies. There were start-ups trying to do what the iPhone did. Apple is claiming those as Apple innovations. This is very similar to Apple popularizing the GUI invented at Xerox, and suing Microsoft.
  - podperson 14y ago
    If it's similar to Apple "popularizing" the GUI "invented" at Xerox then all power to Apple. Certainly, Apple took Xerox's ideas and ran with them, but the results went far beyond what Xerox had made. Microsoft simply took Apple's ideas and made a shoddy clone. See any similarity? We -- at best -- stand on giants' shoulders. Making the facile argument that Samsung got stuff from Apple just like Apple got stuff from Xerox is skipping over very important details.
sebbi 14y ago
It's $30 per phone and with a discount of 20% for cross licensing or something ... not really $40, but still orders of magnitude more than Apple needs/wants to pay for patents they use ... that aren't software related. And everywhere "Apple defined the paradigm with the iPhone". It's true, the iPhone made mobile computing sexy. But seriously, touch-based PDAs, even with phone functionality, existed before. What apple did is simply add some animations, a better browser and a capacitive touch panel. That makes it a more usable device, but not something completely new. Why can (or try) newcomers like Apple and Microsoft charge these $10+ license fees for some UI stuff, but those who really make everything work by decades of research and building the industry get only pennys for what they did? Strange world ;-)
metatronscube 14y ago
Sounds fair. Samsung's 'designs' are total ripoffs of the iPhone anyway.
josephlord 14y ago
Sorry Off-topic for the royalty request but relevant to the link. Is it just me that runs with Noscript and finds scribd a real nuisance? The linked page wants to run scripts from: www.scribd.com fonts1.scribdassets.com s5.scribdassets.com s6.scribdassets.com rc.rlcdn.com resources.infolinks.com tap-cdn.rubiconproject.com www.bkrtx.com And you have to register to do the direct download. I would have thought that they could have rationalised their own use of domains to a single domain (plus subdomains) that could be authorised if I wished. The other four domains I've never heard of which makes me just want to get out of the site. Should I just trust them because scribd says that they trust them?
- gnu8 14y ago
  Scribd is truly a nuisance. No one needs their product and the price is too high (zero dollars plus all of the information they can mine from Facebook).
- quesera 14y ago
  It's common to use a different (not sub) domain for static assets, especially when you use gigantic cookies in your web app. If the static assets aren't under access control, you usually don't need session information, etc to serve them properly. This saves time and bandwidth. It's also common to spread assets across multiple hostsnames (typically subdomains that resolve to the same server) to parallelize loading by browsers. So I try to give sites some leeway, but I agree about scribd. If I can't make the site work by allowing the primary domain and a CDN domain, I generally bail. I never ever allow unknown domains like those above, especially on a site where I'm coming to view user-submitted content. I trust the JavaScript sandbox well enough, but if I get to the point of having to wonder about the provenance of code delivered by a site I'm visiting, I'm usually too disgusted to bother continuing.
- josephlord 14y ago
  I know I've been downvoted (a first for me on HN - I guess for being offtopic but maybe because many people feel that I'm wrong to be objecting to this) but I also got it wrong, more sites are needed once you do allow scribd.com. All the non-scribd sites above seem to be tracking or analytics. Additionally required after www.scribd.com has been permitted (I haven't allowed any of the advertising/tracking/SEO sites to run scripts to see if they have further dependencies): twitter.com p.chango.com quantserve.com beacon.newrelic.com - (I don't object to this one.) www.googletagservices.com If people think I am wrong to be uncomfortable with this sort of behaviour by a site please reply and try to change my mind. I just really don't like the idea that websites feel free to allow half the advertising companies on the internet to know what individual* people are browsing and looking at. Maybe I'm just too Web 1.0 and old fashioned to expect sites not to send me round the internet when I land on the page. *Scribd may not be tracking who people are but the advertisers might be.
Someone 14y ago
every? $30 for every _smartphone_, $40 for every _tablet_. Sounds decent for me as a starting point for negotiations, given that Microsoft is rumoredto collect $1 to $5 per Andorid phone (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15427575 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15427575), with the $5 probably for the higher end phones.
- taligent 14y ago
  Shame you were downvoted for expressing a legitimate point. Microsoft is charging $1 to $5 for I believe only 2 patents (FAT and Calendar event creation). And they in the eyes of the user (based on the research) aren't as 'valuable' as the UI patents. Also Apple was proposing that royalty rate to be lowered by up to 100% in exchange for cross licensing.
  - bluelu 14y ago
    "Also Apple was proposing that royalty rate to be lowered by up to 100% in exchange for cross licensing." Where is your source?
  - camiller 14y ago
    actually Apple offered a "20 percent discount if Samsung agreed to cross-license its patents to Apple" and a further level of discount if "Samsung would stop using Apple’s most proprietary features". http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/new_court_docs_reveal_apples_patent_licensing_royalty_demands/ http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/new_court_docs_reveal...
  - josephlord 14y ago
    Not 100% but 20% - read the presentation. 20% off for cross license. 40% off if OS developer already has a license from Apple (i.e. Microsoft OS). 20% off if not not a touch screen ('Not using proprietary features - specific features to be discussed' - basically not like an iPhone). 20% off if using an Apple Licensed Processor - (I don't know what this would be). So realistically if cross license is assumed the real rate would be $24 for a Galaxy S type product, $12 for a WP7 (I don't think that the calculations on slide 18 are actually correct). As mentioned this was the opening of the negotiation. I don't know the strength of the patent portfolio but IF it really is hard to bring a touchscreen phone to competitive level without those technologies these don't seem ridiculous prices to me. If I were Samsung and assessed the patents as strong I would probably try to negotiate for: 1) Exclusion of lower end phones completely if no relevant patents applied. 2) Contractual commitment to get reduced rates if others get them. 3) Reduced rates or higher cross license discount.
kristopolous 14y ago
Apple already eats up 71% of the mobile profits. Looks like they never forgot how to act like a monopoly in all these years and they like getting up on stage and playing all their 20 year old tunes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Computer,_Inc._v._Microsoft_Corporation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Computer,_Inc._v._Microso... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphical_Environment_Manager#Later_versions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphical_Environment_Manager#L... Buying their products is saying, with your actual wallet, and your actual real money in completely unequivocal terms: "Yes, I fully support these blunt litigious anti-competitive tactics. Please do this more." It's almost like a more evil serpent version of the Windows tax: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_refund#The_.22Windows_tax.22 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_refund#The_.22Windows_t... What if Apple spent all this lawyer money instead on making a superior product that would beat their competitors, you know, because it was a better product, and not just go around and be the corporate Tonya Harding?
- czr80 14y ago
  A monopoly position is not defined by share of profits.
  - khuey 14y ago
    Should it be?
    - sbuk 14y ago
      No.
  - bickfordb 14y ago
    Pricing power is a signal
    - jonhendry 14y ago
      The Ritz-Carlton charges high prices, but that doesn't mean they have a monopoly on hotel rooms.
rabidsnail 14y ago
I don't think I've seen more bullshit graphs in one slide deck in my life.
Ihavenoname 14y ago
The title is not particularly accurate. Starting bid of 30 per phone with crops licensing discounts and discount for 'non infringing' phones. Non infringing being ones that apple did not consider to be outright copy of the iPhone trade dress and then quirky features. Apple made enormous effort to differentiate the product and give it a personality. Samsung did not just try to match the features the old ones looked like copies.
mahrain 14y ago
Microsoft seems to be charging anywhere between $7 and $15 per android device for their patents. ( http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/reality-check-microsoft-charging-vendors-a-15-patent-fee-per-android-device/9944 http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/reality-check-microsoft-... ) So while Apple's fee is much higher, it seems fair to me that given the many obvious similarities a form of patent licensing would be in order.

34 points by bluelu 14y ago

oliwarner 14y ago

They can request whatever they like. Doesn't mean they'll get it.

michaelfeathers 14y ago

The document lays claim to "Java, OS and OO" as Apple innovations?

taligent 14y ago
What ? Nowhere in the article did it imply that. It meant some of the implementations of those rely on Apple innovations i.e. patents. Which given how old Apple is, all of the patent acquisitions along the way and some pretty innovative work by NeXT it isn't inconceivable. Doesn't mean that those patents will be enforceable.
- michaelfeathers 14y ago
  See slide #8 and the notes for slide #8.
cyberp 14y ago
The iPhone popularized a lot of best-of-breed technologies. There were start-ups trying to do what the iPhone did. Apple is claiming those as Apple innovations. This is very similar to Apple popularizing the GUI invented at Xerox, and suing Microsoft.
- podperson 14y ago
  If it's similar to Apple "popularizing" the GUI "invented" at Xerox then all power to Apple. Certainly, Apple took Xerox's ideas and ran with them, but the results went far beyond what Xerox had made. Microsoft simply took Apple's ideas and made a shoddy clone. See any similarity? We -- at best -- stand on giants' shoulders. Making the facile argument that Samsung got stuff from Apple just like Apple got stuff from Xerox is skipping over very important details.

sebbi 14y ago

It's $30 per phone and with a discount of 20% for cross licensing or something ... not really $40, but still orders of magnitude more than Apple needs/wants to pay for patents they use ... that aren't software related. And everywhere "Apple defined the paradigm with the iPhone". It's true, the iPhone made mobile computing sexy. But seriously, touch-based PDAs, even with phone functionality, existed before. What apple did is simply add some animations, a better browser and a capacitive touch panel. That makes it a more usable device, but not something completely new. Why can (or try) newcomers like Apple and Microsoft charge these $10+ license fees for some UI stuff, but those who really make everything work by decades of research and building the industry get only pennys for what they did? Strange world ;-)

metatronscube 14y ago

Sounds fair. Samsung's 'designs' are total ripoffs of the iPhone anyway.

josephlord 14y ago

Sorry Off-topic for the royalty request but relevant to the link. Is it just me that runs with Noscript and finds scribd a real nuisance? The linked page wants to run scripts from: www.scribd.com fonts1.scribdassets.com s5.scribdassets.com s6.scribdassets.com rc.rlcdn.com resources.infolinks.com tap-cdn.rubiconproject.com www.bkrtx.com And you have to register to do the direct download. I would have thought that they could have rationalised their own use of domains to a single domain (plus subdomains) that could be authorised if I wished. The other four domains I've never heard of which makes me just want to get out of the site. Should I just trust them because scribd says that they trust them?

gnu8 14y ago
Scribd is truly a nuisance. No one needs their product and the price is too high (zero dollars plus all of the information they can mine from Facebook).
quesera 14y ago
It's common to use a different (not sub) domain for static assets, especially when you use gigantic cookies in your web app. If the static assets aren't under access control, you usually don't need session information, etc to serve them properly. This saves time and bandwidth. It's also common to spread assets across multiple hostsnames (typically subdomains that resolve to the same server) to parallelize loading by browsers. So I try to give sites some leeway, but I agree about scribd. If I can't make the site work by allowing the primary domain and a CDN domain, I generally bail. I never ever allow unknown domains like those above, especially on a site where I'm coming to view user-submitted content. I trust the JavaScript sandbox well enough, but if I get to the point of having to wonder about the provenance of code delivered by a site I'm visiting, I'm usually too disgusted to bother continuing.
josephlord 14y ago
I know I've been downvoted (a first for me on HN - I guess for being offtopic but maybe because many people feel that I'm wrong to be objecting to this) but I also got it wrong, more sites are needed once you do allow scribd.com. All the non-scribd sites above seem to be tracking or analytics. Additionally required after www.scribd.com has been permitted (I haven't allowed any of the advertising/tracking/SEO sites to run scripts to see if they have further dependencies): twitter.com p.chango.com quantserve.com beacon.newrelic.com - (I don't object to this one.) www.googletagservices.com If people think I am wrong to be uncomfortable with this sort of behaviour by a site please reply and try to change my mind. I just really don't like the idea that websites feel free to allow half the advertising companies on the internet to know what individual* people are browsing and looking at. Maybe I'm just too Web 1.0 and old fashioned to expect sites not to send me round the internet when I land on the page. *Scribd may not be tracking who people are but the advertisers might be.

Someone 14y ago

every? $30 for every _smartphone_, $40 for every _tablet_. Sounds decent for me as a starting point for negotiations, given that Microsoft is rumoredto collect $1 to $5 per Andorid phone (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15427575 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15427575), with the $5 probably for the higher end phones.

taligent 14y ago
Shame you were downvoted for expressing a legitimate point. Microsoft is charging $1 to $5 for I believe only 2 patents (FAT and Calendar event creation). And they in the eyes of the user (based on the research) aren't as 'valuable' as the UI patents. Also Apple was proposing that royalty rate to be lowered by up to 100% in exchange for cross licensing.
- bluelu 14y ago
  "Also Apple was proposing that royalty rate to be lowered by up to 100% in exchange for cross licensing." Where is your source?
- camiller 14y ago
  actually Apple offered a "20 percent discount if Samsung agreed to cross-license its patents to Apple" and a further level of discount if "Samsung would stop using Apple’s most proprietary features". http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/new_court_docs_reveal_apples_patent_licensing_royalty_demands/ http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/new_court_docs_reveal...
- josephlord 14y ago
  Not 100% but 20% - read the presentation. 20% off for cross license. 40% off if OS developer already has a license from Apple (i.e. Microsoft OS). 20% off if not not a touch screen ('Not using proprietary features - specific features to be discussed' - basically not like an iPhone). 20% off if using an Apple Licensed Processor - (I don't know what this would be). So realistically if cross license is assumed the real rate would be $24 for a Galaxy S type product, $12 for a WP7 (I don't think that the calculations on slide 18 are actually correct). As mentioned this was the opening of the negotiation. I don't know the strength of the patent portfolio but IF it really is hard to bring a touchscreen phone to competitive level without those technologies these don't seem ridiculous prices to me. If I were Samsung and assessed the patents as strong I would probably try to negotiate for: 1) Exclusion of lower end phones completely if no relevant patents applied. 2) Contractual commitment to get reduced rates if others get them. 3) Reduced rates or higher cross license discount.

kristopolous 14y ago

Apple already eats up 71% of the mobile profits. Looks like they never forgot how to act like a monopoly in all these years and they like getting up on stage and playing all their 20 year old tunes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Computer,_Inc._v._Microsoft_Corporation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Computer,_Inc._v._Microso... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphical_Environment_Manager#Later_versions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphical_Environment_Manager#L... Buying their products is saying, with your actual wallet, and your actual real money in completely unequivocal terms: "Yes, I fully support these blunt litigious anti-competitive tactics. Please do this more." It's almost like a more evil serpent version of the Windows tax: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_refund#The_.22Windows_tax.22 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_refund#The_.22Windows_t... What if Apple spent all this lawyer money instead on making a superior product that would beat their competitors, you know, because it was a better product, and not just go around and be the corporate Tonya Harding?

czr80 14y ago
A monopoly position is not defined by share of profits.
- khuey 14y ago
  Should it be?
  - sbuk 14y ago
    No.
- bickfordb 14y ago
  Pricing power is a signal
  - jonhendry 14y ago
    The Ritz-Carlton charges high prices, but that doesn't mean they have a monopoly on hotel rooms.

rabidsnail 14y ago

I don't think I've seen more bullshit graphs in one slide deck in my life.

Ihavenoname 14y ago

The title is not particularly accurate. Starting bid of 30 per phone with crops licensing discounts and discount for 'non infringing' phones. Non infringing being ones that apple did not consider to be outright copy of the iPhone trade dress and then quirky features. Apple made enormous effort to differentiate the product and give it a personality. Samsung did not just try to match the features the old ones looked like copies.

mahrain 14y ago

Microsoft seems to be charging anywhere between $7 and $15 per android device for their patents. ( http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/reality-check-microsoft-charging-vendors-a-15-patent-fee-per-android-device/9944 http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/reality-check-microsoft-... ) So while Apple's fee is much higher, it seems fair to me that given the many obvious similarities a form of patent licensing would be in order.