US Antitrust Agency Sues Qualcomm Over Patent Licensing (reuters.com) 71
Qualcomm shares have plunged after the U.S. Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit against the company on Tuesday, accusing the company of using "anticompetitive" tactics to maintain its monopoly on a key semiconductor used in mobile phones. Reuters reports: The FTC, which works with the Justice Department to enforce antitrust law, said that San Diego-based Qualcomm used its dominant position as a supplier of certain phone chips to impose "onerous" supply and licensing terms on cellphone manufacturers and to weaken competitors. Qualcomm said in a statement that it would "vigorously contest" the complaint and denied FTC allegations that it threatened to withhold chips in order to collect unreasonable licensing fees. In its complaint, the FTC said the patents that Qualcomm sought to license are standard essential patents, which means that the industry uses them widely and they are supposed to be licensed on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms. The FTC complaint also accused Qualcomm of refusing to license some standard essential patents to rival chipmakers, and of entering into an exclusive deal with Apple Inc. The FTC asked the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in San Jose to order Qualcomm to end these practices.
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Ummmm... No, nevermind.
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Prophecy? I guess we'll see.
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So ... you're predicting that Trump will take spectrum licensing from the only agency with any knowledge of what the word 'spectrum' means, the FCC - and give it to the FTC - whose role is to regulate trade, and take trade away from them to give to... somebody ?
You know, I would not be at all surprised if you're right.
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That wasn't what the media reports said. What it said was that he wants to limit the FCC to spectrum control, and move the other functions to the FTC. While I think that's a mistake, it's a very different thing and there can at least be an argument made for it (a stupid argument but an argument).
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I expect you are likely correct.
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That wasn't what the media reports said. What it said was that he wants to limit the FCC to spectrum control, and move the other functions to the FTC.
I've been advocating that for years - at least for the "Network Neutrality" issue.
The problems that network neutrality is trying to address are mainly anticompetitive behavior and consumer fraud, where ISPs selectively degrade service either to extort additional fees or limit users who make heavy use of their contracted bandwidth (consumer fraud - giving less
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- We get more network neutrality - by separating the ISPs from the media conglomerates that incentivize NON-neutrality.
I still have trouble getting my head around why that was ever considered an acceptable situation. It'd be like car companies owning specific roads, and if you were driving the right car, it'd be free, pedal to the metal driving with all gas supplied, but if you were a competitors car you'd pay tolls and be limited to walking speed.
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The US can only do this by Phasing out CDMA. (Score:2)
The US can only do this by Phasing out CDMA. CDMA is basically a weapon for carriers to lock handsets to carriers outside of paying off Phone users.
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Qualcomm holds patents in all kinds of things. In 5G, it holds Standards Essential Patents in the Radio Access Network (RAN), modulation & waveforms, and core networking.
In RAN, centimetre wave (10GHz-30GHz) and millimetre wave (30GHz-300GHz) radio, beam steering or beamforming techniques, and massive MIMO IP are held by Nokia, Ericsson and Qualcomm.
In modulation, 5G requires non-orthogonal transmission schemes, rather than the OFDM of LTE-Advanced. Some schemes under consideration include Filter-Bank
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The key is "Standards Essential".
Does that not mean that they have to be offered under FRAND?
How can they screw the bejesus out of one Maker and not the others?
Oh wait, you have to figure in 'East Texas'. Yep it will work.
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To be fair, he said "carriers", not handset makers.
LTE isn't everywhere, no matter what the carrier marketing says. If you buy a Verizon phone, it has to be able to talk CDMA2000. If you buy AT&T / Sprint / T-mobile, it has to be able to talk GSM. Some handset manufacturers have gone dual-radio to get around this shit, in addition to the idea that a Verizon smartphone shouldn't be a useless lump in other countries not named the United States.
We just saw in another story that AT&T is switching off
Industry should not allow patents in standards (Score:2)
the FTC said the patents that Qualcomm sought to license are standard essential patents, which means that the industry uses them widely and they are supposed to be licensed on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms.
I don't get this. Why do industry groups allow patented technologies in standards? Yes, I'm looking at you, IEEE.
The way I look at it, if you patent something, industry should not give you the unfair advantage of codifying your particular patented technology or whatnot. Feel free to make a market for yourself and make it a defacto standard. However, if you want the endorsement of a reputable industry group, you should be required to offer an irrevocable royalty-free license to anyone wants to implement
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The IEEE, like most SDOs do now, require RAND licensing of standards essential patents (SEPs). However the meaning of RAND has been changing [bakerlaw.com] over time (as companies discovered new ways to game the system, and SDOs responded).
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The people who design the cellular standards are the same people who hold all the patents. Cellular standards are such a mess because everyone wants to get all their patents in the mix somewhere.
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Because if they don't, then they don't get a standard. Nobody is going to go through the R&D spend without some guarantee of licensing revenues.
Standards bodies deal with this by requiring the patent holder to agree to Fair, Reasonable, And Non-Discriminatory licensing (FRAND) to get it included in the standard, or they can go pound it. Meaning, you get to charge $0.25 per radio, and everyone that makes a device based on that standard pays the same. Fair, Reasonable, and without discrimination. Not
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the FTC said the patents that Qualcomm sought to license are standard essential patents, which means that the industry uses them widely and they are supposed to be licensed on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms.
I don't get this. Why do industry groups allow patented technologies in standards? Yes, I'm looking at you, IEEE.
The way I look at it, if you patent something, industry should not give you the unfair advantage of codifying your particular patented technology or whatnot. Feel free to make a market for yourself and make it a defacto standard. However, if you want the endorsement of a reputable industry group, you should be required to offer an irrevocable royalty-free license to anyone wants to implement the standard. At least, that is how it would work in my perfect little world.
If they didn't allow the people who invented the technology to make money off the technology, they simply would not participate in the standards body and life would be chaos. Instead, they have every incentive to have their patents included because even with RAND they stand to make money off of every unit sold and not just units they sell directly. As long as they really keep the prices reasonable and non-discriminatory, then there is no problem. That seems to be the tricky part, though!
Wait - we still have an antitrust agency? (Score:2)
"With only a few exceptions, current (Obama Administration) enforcement looks much like enforcement under the Bush Administration."
https://www.stanfordlawreview.org/online/has-the-obama-justice-department-reinvigorated-antitrust-enforcement/
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After microsoft got away with a wristslap after some of the worst antitrust offenses in half a century - the justice department kind of gave up. The US courts had too many free market fundamentalists who tried to legislate their belief that antitrust laws are evil from the bench.
It wasn't always like that. Theodore Rooseveldt (a republican no less) was nicknamed "The Trustbuster" for his aggressive pursuit of antitrust cases - he went hard after them. He once ordered one of the richest men in America to the
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Wait - we still have an antitrust agency? I haven't heard much from it during the past few decades.
The entire FTC's budget for 2016 was only about $307 million. They only asked for $342 million for 2017.
If they're going to be given more responsibility and actually exercise it effectively (which involves bringing, and winning or settling, suits against multibillion dollar conglomerates) I expect they'll need some more.
But the Qualcomm product is worth it (Score:2, Interesting)
The thing is, the Qualcomm product is demonstrably better than the competing options. It's not even close. As a user, I don't give a care if they strongarm Apple or Samsung or other companies and force them to pay more. What I want is the best performing phone I can get and I don't want excuses that some company opted for an alternative that stinks.
We can see that right now with the intel chipset iPhones falling flat on their faces compared to the superior Qualcomm iPhones. There. THAT is why I wan
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> The thing is, the Qualcomm product is demonstrably better than the competing options. It's not even close. ... We can see that right now with the intel chipset iPhones falling flat on their faces compared to the superior Qualcomm iPhones.
You ever think that maybe could be because of "Qualcomm us[ing] its dominant position as a supplier of certain phone chips to impose "onerous" supply and licensing terms on cellphone manufacturers and to weaken competitors." as well as "Qualcomm['s refusal] to license
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Had Qualcomm not entered into an agreement to license its SEPs at RAND rates, in exchange for the inclusion of its tech in widely-used telecom standards; had they simply kept their patents to themselves and forced the standards body to make due without Qualcomm's patented tech, FedGov would not have a case.
Is it common practice for FTC to sue to enforce contracts? Shouldn't the suit be brought by the parties which suffered because of the breach? Unless, FTC is a party to SEP agreement, then it should have not standing to sue for the breach. Even if it were a party, FTC would not be able to demonstrate damages to the FTC, so it would not have standing to sue. The only standing it can show in this case is as an entity entrusted with ensuring that monopoly power is not abused. But using government-granted l
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They -uh- have?
Not in court. My point remains that the parties which were purportedly damaged have a way to redress their grievances through court without FTC. And only the damaged parties have standing to ask for redress. FTC cannot claim damage to overall marketplace until after a court has ruled that there were some parties damaged through a breach of a contract.
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Absolutely not. Consider -for example- the crime of manslaughter. The relatives of the slain can often press civil charges against the killer for his conduct. That fact has _absolutely no bearing_ on the criminal charges available to and evidentiary standards for The State's criminal case against the killer.
That's an entirely different situation. In a case of man slaughter, the victim is dead (so he cannot seek relief). The state does not brings criminal charges to correct the wrong done to the relatives. It does it to correct the wrong done to the victim.
It actually _does_ mean that.
That would mean that by agreeing to a "reasonable compensation" they agree to not have any say in what is or isn't "reasonable." "Non-Discriminatory" is also difficult to parse because it has to mean like compensation in like situations. But every compan
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The fact that the immediately affected (the family/heirs) can seek relief in court for the slaying has absolutely no bearing on whether or not The State has separate charges that it can bring against the lawbreaker for the same act.
These are different aggrieved parties. The state seeks justice for the slayed. The relatives seek relief for themselves (due to loss they themselves suffered as a result of losing a relative -- not on the aggrieved relative's behalf). Honestly, I can just help you out there. If you can demonstrate that fraud victims can both get justice in criminal court and redress in civil court, then that would be a far better example.
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Read the FTC's complaint; it's only ~45 pages, and I linked to it above. You're just embarrassing yourself with your proclamations from ignorance.
Section I (NATURE OF THE CASE), paragraph 4 (page 3):
Qualcomm’s “no license-no chips” policy dramatically increases customers’ costs of challenging Qualcomm’s preferred license terms before a court or other neutral arbiter— including on the basis that those terms are non-FRAND—or to negotiate royalties in the shadow of such a challenge. This leaves Qualcomm’s customers in a markedly different position than they would be in a typical patent licensing negotiatio
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. Give the grinding wheel an hour's rest.
You flatter me. I couldn't possibly spend any of my time in hopes of making money as a stripper.
This really isn't difficult to understand, dude.
Nothing is. It's only time consuming. And at this point, I get the feeling that you are just trying to get me to do legal research for you.
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That's Federal law. You might not like it, but that's the law. What's more, that has been the law for right around a hundred years.
So your contention is that "from using unfair methods of competition in or affecting commerce and unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce" is to be interpreted literally for the purposes of inferring legislative intent of that phrase? If that were the case, why did we ever need RICO statutes? Certainly racketeering would have qualified as "unfair acts" "affecting commerce" if these words were taken in their broad plain-English interpretation. I am not gonna do case law research, bu
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"Oh, but those cases ended in a Consent Decree, that's not successful litigation!" I hear you saying. Again, that's you speaking from ignorance. Look to FTC v. Rambus, Inc for an example of what it looks like when the FTC has a case dismissed.
And I would point out that when the government actually has a case (as it did in the case of Microsoft), it litigates it. And yet, you haven't shown a single case which the government successfully litigated and which also resulted from a government-granted monopoly. You argue that I may not like the, but that's the law. Well, I say to that if you don't like the fact that government is granting monopolies, then take it up with the legislature -- not with the courts. I don't actually mind the law. I just
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Are you now contending that RICO's objective was to solely stop conspiracy criminal activity rather than breaking up organized-crime-as-a-business?
As for this:
*cough* Ooookaaaaaaaaay, buddy.
They made a number of similar moves within their last week. So the shoe fits.
Grinding wheel. Used for sharpening axes and other blades. From the phrase "An axe to grind".
Yes, but "sharpen your mind" (as I assume you are suggesting) is not one of this phrase's common usages.
And -if you look closely-, you'll discover that United States v. Microsoft Corporation was settled (and part of that settlement was a Consent Decree)... just like those two cases I mentioned. :)
The government already had a verdict at that point. The settlement was a decision by Microsoft not to pursue appeals. So the litigation was, in fact, finished. You stil
You must be a Qualcomm shill. (Score:1)
Or just a sheep, incapable of seeing beyond its nose.
How's a monopoly situation, kept in place by artificial means (be it patents, be it law buying, be it other dirty collusion tricks) beneficial to any of us (except Qualcomm execs) in the mid-term?
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The thing is, the Qualcomm product is demonstrably better than the competing options...We can see that right now with the intel chipset iPhones falling flat on their faces compared to the superior Qualcomm iPhones.
The Intel modems are inferior, but saying they fall flat on their face is a vast over exaggeration. I have a Zenfone 2 and my wife has a HTC 10. Her Snapdragon 820 is 2 years newer than the XMM 7262 in my phone. The 820 is LTE Cat 12, the 7262 Cat 6, we are both on T-Mobile LTE. I just did a speed test on each phone same place and time, mine got 52 Mb/s down, 27 Mb/s up. Hers gets 89 Mb/s down, 15 Mb/s up. Yeah the 2 years newer Qualcomm chip is better, but if you compare it with the XMM 7480 (same year as
Quality of comments (Score:1)
is a function of embedded actors in the industry...
Lower quality communication and low signal to noise ratio makes reaching a consensus slower. You can defeat this roadblock by simply looking at the quality of the comments first instead of considering them. When there is clear disdain for the very act of communication, it becomes clear whats going on in the context of the event.
The Irony (Score:3)
Qualcomm has patents on actual products, technologies, and methods they have developed. The view of the Federal government is that they are in violation of anti-trust laws.
Yet, Apple who had patents on flat rectangular device, gride arrangement of icons, etc. Gets billions of dollars for having absolutely zero technology infringed. Go figure....
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The real irony is that you still don't understand the difference between standards essential patents and design patents after all this time.
If you lobby to include your tech patents into a global communications standard under the premise that those patents would be licensed under Fair, Reasonable, and Non-Discriminatory terms (which are conditions for inclusion in the standard), and then start asking for unfair, unreasonable, and highly discriminatory licensing terms from certain licensors, then you are a f
Apple (Score:2)
Apple, is proven as one of the worst bad actors.