Apple Sues Qualcomm Over Patent Royalties in Antitrust Case – Bloomberg (Jan 20, 2017)
First we had the FTC taking action against Qualcomm, and now Apple is joining the fray, and I’d argue that’s not at all coincidental. Apple would obviously dearly love to pay Qualcomm less money for licensing and chips, and the FTC has given it the perfect ammunition by highlighting alleged wrongdoing on Qualcomm’s part. Intriguingly, it appears that Qualcomm has been withholding rebates due to Apple in retaliation for Apple assisting the South Korean authorities with their recent investigations into anticompetitive practices by Qualcomm. But Apple is also going a lot further, by making some of the same arguments put forth in the FTC case about overcharging for essential FRAND patents. This is going to get ugly. I’m seeing – both in this Bloomberg piece and elsewhere – suggestions that this lawsuit stems from high pressure Apple feels around iPhone growth and margins, but that’s nonsense – Apple will always try to get the best margins possible, and when it’s given a way to apply pressure to a supplier, it’ll do so. The FTC action provided just such a way, so that’s the proximate cause here, not any sort of crunch on the Apple side.
via Apple Sues Qualcomm Over Patent Royalties in Antitrust Case – Bloomberg
The company, topic, and narrative tags below will take you to other posts with the same tags. The narrative link(s) will also take you to the narrative essay which provides additional context behind the post.
Vote for or share this post
Use the Like button below to vote for this post as one of the most important of the week. The posts voted most important are more likely to be included in the News Roundup podcast episode I do each week. Or use the sharing buttons to share a link to this post to social networks or other services.