“With a U.S. trial starting tomorrow (Monday, July 30), Apple’s dispute with Samsung will likely dominate the headlines over the next several weeks, but from a strategic point of view, Apple’s dispute with Motorola Mobility is even more important in light of that company’s recent acquisition by Google, the maker of Android,” Florian Mueller reports for FOSS Patents.
“Google’s Motorola Mobility wants to be entitled to injunctive relief (also against Microsoft in parallel lawsuits) unless a court or the ITC determines that it broke its FRAND pledge — and Motorola also wants courts or the ITC to look at its counterparts’ willingness or unwillingness to negotiatef,” Mueller reports. “In other words, unless someone negotiates under Motorola’s preferred parameters (Hobson’s choice, basically), he’s an unwilling licensee, and that’s an accusation that Apple refutes in its responsive brief. ‘Over the last few years, Apple consistently maintained its willingness to enter into a [F]RAND license and has sought to persuade Motorola to accept a [sic] [F]RAND terms. That Apple has refused to accede to Motorola’s unfair demands does not make Apple an ‘unwilling licensee.’ Apple has concluded cross-licenses with many companies in the wireless industry, and stands ready to execute an agreement with Motorola if Motorola were to comply with [F]RAND.'”
Mueller reports, “In March, a European Commission document confirmed that Apple, according to its own representations, refused to grant Motorola a cross-license involving Apple’s non-SEPs. Also, when Apple CEO Tim Cook spoke at the most recent edition of AllThingsD’s D10 conference, he made a clear distinction between SEPs and non-SEPs, said he’d like to settle those assertions of SEPs against Apple, and stated that Apple ‘can’t be the developer for the world.’ A cross-license deal between Apple and Motorola Mobility may involve some or all of Apple’s non-SEPs, but in connection with the ITC investigation of Motorola’s complaint against Apple, all that matters is that Apple is not an unwilling licensee: it wants a license to Motorola’s SEPs, but as long as Motorola demands a 2.25% royalty based on the entire market value of Apple’s products, there won’t be a deal.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
OK, I’ll lease you that Ferrari at a fair yearly price but I’m not going to pay more than $10 a year for that 15 year old 3 speed Schwinn bicycle.
Google seems to be the current, “We have NO clue” company. Do they really think it’s good business strategy to alienate just about every other tech company, and the majority of those end-users with any interest in tech news? How’s that “alienate everybody” strategy working for Microscum?
Microsoft has a lot more ability to lock in users than Google. People can always switch to another internet search engine (as I did), it’s not so easy to switch out of Windows when all your software runs on it.
Google should be very careful, they are a lot more vulnerable than they realize. The perception of their company matters a lot more to them than the same for MS.
Motorola/Google are asking for “2.25% royalty based on the entire market value of Apple’s products” Thats insane. If the market value of an iPhone is $600 (I don’t know the actual price of an unlocked phone but it’s somewhere in that neighborhood), that would be $13.50 on each iPhone, thats fucking ridiculous. Motorola needs to be taught a lesson for it’s greed.
It would make sense to charge a % of the cost of the actual 3G chip in the phone (¢50 per chip maybe) but over $10 per phone is insane. What happens when you put one of these chips in a $40K car, Motorola should get $900?
In what way would Motorola be responsible for (and therefor entitled to a % of the value of) the entire cost of the finished product because of one chip? How many different chips, from different manufacturers, do you think are in one phone? Dozens? More? Do you think they could all charge 2.25% of the total market value of the finished product?
gah, disregard my post LOL I thought yours started with Apple, not Google. Agreed on the Google nonsense.
FRAND licensing allows a patent holder a guaranteed income stream for the life of the patent from all companies selling into the market covered by the FRAND patent. It’s not a bad deal for the patent holder as it locks in income.
It’s when such holders suddenly think that FRAND is a license to extort and bully their competitors that it becomes an issue for the courts, as per what Samsung and Motorola did, and what Nokia tried (and failed) to do against Apple.
Sometimes I wish the whole Google Linux system would implode on itself.
Best comment ever on MDN. E-v-e-r!
Linux is not a bad product by it’s self. It may have been tarnished a bit by it’s association with Google however.
I tell you what… Google is making it VERY EASY for me to dump all their products (Gmail, maps, etc…).