A week ago, on November 29, there was a flurry of activity between Apple and Qualcomm, and I'd like to share the documents with you now as well as a few observations:
Apple filed its answer and counterclaims (uploaded to Scribd) to Qualcomm's first infringement complaint (a companion lawsuit to an ITC complaint). The introductory statement contains the following portrayal of the parties:
"This case presents a tale of two companies. On one hand we have Apple who literally created the modern smartphone as a product category, with the iPhone's cutting edge design, easy connectivity, superlative battery life, and interactive applications that make the smartphone the smartphone. On the other we have Qualcomm, who developed rudimentary telephone technology that carried voice calls in the early days of feature phones, but whose technology is dated. [...]
The weak patents Qualcomm asserts here for the first time appear to be a blatant effort to take credit for the innovation of others. Notably, all of Qualcomm's asserted patents were filed and prosecuted well after the iPhone was introduced. Put plainly, Qualcomm saw the unique features and success of the iPhone, and then pursued patents trying to cover the Apple product much like a common patent troll."While I wouldn't subscribe to this description 100%, it is a fact that Qualcomm's innovations already powered pre-iPhone devices, and if Qualcomm had really been the primary innovator in the smartphone space, the iPhone and iPhone-like Android devices wouldn't have displaced older phones such as those made by Nokia at the time. The difference that the iPhone made was at a different layer of the technology stack. As for whether Qualcomm is behaving "much like a common patent troll," I'd have been less inclined to agree with Apple's lawyers on this one before Qualcomm made its four other filings that same day. In other words, Qualcomm couldn't have done much more to lend credence to the "troll" label.
In addition to defending itself against Qualcomm's claims, Apple brought counterclaims alleging that Qualcomm is infringing eight Apple patents on techniques that minimize battery power consumption.
- Qualcomm filed a second ITC complaint against Apple (uploaded to Scribd), over five patents described as relating to touch gestures, autofocus, multitasking, quick charging, and machine learning. Once again, Qualcomm is seeking an import ban against devices incorporating Intel chips, which is problematic given Qualcomm's market dominance. Considering that the previous ITC complaint was filed in the summer, Qualcomm apparently just waited long enough so it would have a decent chance of avoiding consolidation of two ITC actions into one (in which case Qualcomm would come under pressure to narrow its combined case, and which would delay resolution).
In the Southern District of California, Qualcomm filed a civil companion lawsuit mirroring the ITC complaint (uploaded to Scribd).
Qualcomm also filed a complaint (uploaded to Scribd) over patents originally filed by Palm Computing and the creators of a device named TouchTable.
Finally, Qualcomm brought a complaint (uploaded to Scribd) over what it says relates to battery charging, content delivery, machine learning, stepped gain mixers, image processing, and circuitry.
Sometimes it's hard to see the forest despite all the trees. The core issue is Qualcomm's behavior that regulators around the globe have already held to be anticompetitive. Qualcomm writes in its latest complains that "Apple misled governmental agencies around the world into investigating Qualcomm in an effort to indirectly exert leverage over Qualcomm," but where there is so much smoke, and in so many different places, it's hard to imagine there isn't also a whole lot of actual fire. No company can ever have the persuasive power that Qualcomm claims Apple has. Qualcomm would have us believe that Apple managed to mislead multiple regulatory agencies with their specialized and dedicated case teams and experienced senior decision makers. I just can't imagine this to be the case. Instead, I believe that "you can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time" (a quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln).
There's an antitrust core here, which (let's not forget) also involves patent exhaustion issues. Around that core, there are tangential and peripheral issues and factors.
For example, there's Broadcom's takeover bid, which Qualcomm's board has rejected.
There's Qualcomm's constant struggle to balance investor relations and litigation/antitrust priorities. The investor relations part was important at the outset and became even more relevant after Apple and another company (which analysts tend to believe is Huawei) stopped royalty payments to Qualcomm through contract manufacturers.
And now there's a whole lot of infringement litigation.
As I've said in previous posts, the real issues here are so important to the entire mobile device industry that I hope it won't come down to leverage (whether it's leverage based on Apple's cessation of royalty payments or leverage based on Qualcomm's infringement claims against Apple). The outcome should depend on the merits--and only on the merits.
Whether Qualcomm will get much leverage out of its infringement cases is impossible to tell at this early stage, but in this industry companies typically don't get much leverage out of non-standard-essential patents because, if it comes to worst, they can usually be worked around--nor do they get much leverage out of standard-essential patents because of their obligation to license them on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms to all comers (Qualcomm doesn't quite agree on "to all comers" yet, as it denies licenses to chipset makers, but that will hopefully change as a result of antitrust proceedings in multiple jurisdictions, Apple's cross-jurisdictional lawsuits, and maybe even lawsuits by other parties, which can always happen).
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