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Apple swiping the industry | 264 comments | Create New Account
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Apple swiping the industry
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, December 13 2012 @ 12:58 AM EST
if people find the FRAND too expensive they can always use their own standards

This view is just wrong.

FRAND should always be negotiated in good faith and be done in a Fair Reasonable And Non Discriminatory manner, hence the royalties should be somewhat consistent between all players in an industry. In this way the FRAND standards essential patents should never be too expensive and should allow one and all to make a fair profit developing products using these standards (for which they negotiate a royalty with the patent holders for the rights to use the technology before selling their products).

Only if one has tried and failed to negotiate in good faith should one end up in civil proceedings. The courts should not be the first avenue when the standards essential patent holders attempt to negotiate an agreement (and obviously one should not have been selling products for years using this standards essential technology without having an agreement).

And this is the crux of the issue, Apple did not want to negotiate in any way. They wanted access to the standards essential patents and just decided to used it. Apple didn't want to pay anything much less pay what others were paying under their FRAND agreements. There was no attempt to negotiate whatsoever as Apple went directly to the litigation route wanting the court to define a very low royalty rate, in essence defining what is fair and reasonable without Apple having attempted a negotiation. Having the court define a low royalty rate would then free Apple to use their non-essential patents to quash any competition as Apple itself stated they would never license some of their patents (as they are too valuable to be compensated by $).

So its not a matter of using some other technology if one doesn't like the price of some standard essential patents (that other players have had no issue with). Its about negotiating in good faith which Apple just does not want to do. It's about paying for the patents you use in your product which Apple does not want to do.

Apple's preference is to use the courts to make FRAND = FREE and then use its non standard essential patents and trade dress IP to limit a competitors ability to play in the field these competitors actually created!

After all this litigation settles, I hope Apple will be remembered for trying to 'SWIPE' the industry but the gesture that is more likely to be associated with Apple is one that is seen out the window of a vehicle during a road rage incident.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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