“On Friday afternoon, AllThingsD’s Ina Fried was first to publish a presentation of a licensing proposal Apple made to Samsung on October 5, 2010 — six and a half months months prior to suing,” Florian Mueller reports for FOSS Patents. “This is the most spectacular revelation of the ongoing trial.”
“The structure of what Apple proposed in 2010 is pretty straightforward. Depending on the type of device, Samsung would need to license more or fewer patents. Apple was primarily interested in working out a solution for devices of the “mobile computer” category: iPhone-like smartphones and iPad-like tablets. For this device category, Apple proposed a $30 per-unit royalty, except that for the first two years, the per-unit royalty per tablet computer would have amounted to $40,” Mueller reports.
“Apple’s October 2010 proposal to Samsung provides previously-unavailable insights into Apple’s strategic approach to these issues. It also serves to show that analysts who claimed that companies like HTC could get a $5-per-unit deal done with Apple were completely off base,” Mueller reports. “I believe many financial analysts will now also be more cautious about the royalty levels they assume for other deals, also as far as Microsoft’s royalty-bearing license agreements are concerned. Finally, the publication of Apple’s proposal supports my long-standing theory that Apple is primarily interested in market share, not patent royalties.”
Read more in the full article here.
Related article:
Steve Jobs offered iOS licensing deal to Samsung for $250 million; stupid Samsung declined – August 11, 2012
