1. Apple executives appear in court to testify: whether they have conspired with Samsung to launch an antitrust investigation against Qualcomm;
According to Reuters, the District Court of Southern District of California decided on Friday to demand that Apple’s senior executive Eddy Cue be present to testify. Did Apple conspire with Samsung Electronics to launch an antitrust investigation against Qualcomm?
Reuters pointed out that the summoning of Aidiku to testify in court was an important step in the trial. His words and deeds related to an important accusation filed by Qualcomm against Apple.
According to public information, Eddie, 53, is one of Apple's most well-known executives and has worked at Apple for 29 years. As a senior vice president of Internet software and services, he often appears on the stage of the Apple conference. New features such as Apple Music, Apple TV, etc. He is also the chief negotiator of Apple's digital music, video and books, and one of CEO's chief assistants.
At the beginning of 2017, Apple filed a $1 billion lawsuit against Qualcomm and accused Qualcomm of collecting unfair use fees for 'unrelated technologies.' Apple insisted that Qualcomm's mobile phone pricing was a unfair way to collect royalties. But Qualcomm responded by saying that their technology was 'the core of every iPhone'. After that, Qualcomm filed a counterclaim and accused Apple of violating the license agreement and making a false statement.
In Qualcomm’s allegations, Apple’s “one offense” was a complicity with competitor Samsung Electronics, which promoted the Korean government’s anti-monopoly investigation against Qualcomm. Qualcomm alleged that at a meeting in Idaho in 2015, Apple Senior executives have encouraged Samsung Electronics to adopt a 'more offensive' stance and demand that the Korean government’s antitrust agency take investigations into Qualcomm.
Qualcomm said that the Apple executive told Samsung that South Korea is the 'home' of Samsung Electronics. If the South Korean government can investigate Qualcomm and issue a ticket, it will be the 'best opportunity' for Samsung to require Qualcomm to change its patent licensing activities. Qualcomm believes that the collusion between Apple and Samsung violated the agreement signed between Apple and Qualcomm.
It is understood that in December 2016, the Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) determined that Qualcomm had hampered competition in licensing patents and selling smart phone chips, and announced that it would issue rectification orders for certain specific behaviors and imposed approximately 1.03 trillion won ( An administrative fine of approximately 898 million U.S. dollars.
In February 2017, Qualcomm submitted two lawsuits to the High Court of Korea. One was to revoke the KFTC ruling; the other was to request the suspension of the KFTC chip authorization behavior rectification request until the first appeal was announced.
In September last year, the Seoul Court rejected the second appeal of Qualcomm, saying that the KFTC ruling would not bring 'irreparable loss' to Qualcomm's business and required Qualcomm to rectify its monopolistic practices in the Korean market. Subsequently, Qualcomm Announcing another appeal to the Supreme Court of Korea.
It is worth mentioning that at the beginning of this year, Qualcomm and Samsung have signed a new alliance agreement. It is reported that as part of the latest patent cross-licensing agreement, Samsung will withdraw its intervention in Qualcomm's appeal against the Korean Fair Trade Commission's decision on penalties.
In the past several years, Qualcomm has been investigated and fined in antitrust investigations in four countries or regions of the world. The European Union, South Korea, Taiwan, China, and Qualcomm have received a total fine of about 4 billion U.S. dollars. In China, Qualcomm is After the government sanctioned, the communication patent license fee was reduced, and the cooperation atmosphere with mobile phone manufacturers was improved.
In fact, in order to ease the relationship with Apple, Qualcomm has already made three concessions. Qualcomm announced last week that it will adjust the core business patent licensing fees, set a limit of 400 US dollars, compared with the previous limit of 500 The dollar fell by one-fifth in order to activate the authorized business development.
2. Eddy Cue, senior vice president of Apple, was afraid of being dismissed from the patent battle of Qualcomm;
IT Home May 5 News The patent warfare between Apple and Qualcomm's two giants is still ongoing, and the patents and licensing fees involved have reached billions of dollars. Qualcomm's spearhead refers to Apple's network software. , Senior Vice President of Services Eddy Cue. This Friday, San Diego Federal Judge Mitchell D. Dembin made a ruling ordering Apple to dismiss Cue.
Bloomberg reported the news and stated that the core of this matchup is how much patent fees Qualcomm should charge mobile phone manufacturers, whether or not they use their chips. Qualcomm has already obtained a large amount of revenue from royalties. These patent fees cover Contemporary mobile phones can only be based on the basic level.
In November last year, Qualcomm proposed to Apple to recall Cue. Apple’s response was that Cue’s duty was to supervise the service and had nothing to do with the case. Qualcomm, however, quoted Apple’s past statement, noting that Cue was the iPhone’s AT&T in the United States in 2007. One of the chief negotiators launched exclusively on the Internet.
Cue, 53, is one of Apple's best-known executives and has worked at Apple for 29 years. As senior vice president of Internet software and services, he regularly appears on Apple's conference stage to release Apple Music, Apple TV and New features such as. He is also the chief negotiator of Apple's digital music, video and books, and is one of CEO's chief assistants.
3. Apple filed an invalidation request for Qualcomm's patent, iPhone7/7p may be affected;
According to the report of the Micro-net, according to the report of Science and Technology Daily, on May 4, the Patent Re-examination Board of the State Intellectual Property Office organized the first 'public trial of major cases' in 2018. The case involved the name of the invention as 'card metaphor for activities in computing devices'. No. 201310491586.1 invention patent, the patentee is Qualcomm Co., Ltd., and the invalidation requester is Apple Computer Trading (Shanghai) Co., Ltd.
It is reported that this case is one of the more than ten cases of invalid declaration requests filed by Apple for Qualcomm in the near future. It is significant that the related lawsuit involves the requirement that Apple stop selling and promise to sell iPhone 7, 7plus and other products.
This case involves the use of sliding gestures to perform the switching or exit of the APP during the GUI interaction. Because the gestures are simple and intuitive, the control effect is good, and the technical solutions involved in this patent are widely used in smart phones. The review of the case The result may have a profound effect on the protection of the interactive design of the smart mobile terminal GUI.
In recent years, disputes between Qualcomm and Apple have continued. Qualcomm has filed several patent rights infringement lawsuits against Apple Inc. in Beijing, Fuzhou and other local courts. Many of them involve more than 100 million claims. Apple also filed several patents for Qualcomm. Request for invalidation to the Patent Reexamination Board.
4.Samsung Folding Screen Phone Patent Revealed System With Shape Adaptive
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office recently issued a new Samsung patent, which is used for a collapsible smartphone. It should be the rumored Galaxy X design.
According to patent information, this phone can be folded twice, that is to say it has three parts and modules, consistent with the previous rumors. In fact, Samsung rumored to have prepared this prototype of the Galaxy X, This product was first shown non-publicly at CES, but only for the core partners, and was subject to confidentiality agreements. No news flowed out.
But this patent on the previous folding screen further, is not a simple hinge or folding screen patent applications, but adjusted for the entire system. Internal phone has sensors that can sense the current folding angle and shape, the system will automatically adjust to a different style and status, to adapt to the current form, to meet the different display under different forms, always maintaining user-friendly.
In fact Samsung patent applications not only for the two flip phones, single fold phone also try, so do not rule out future Samsung launched several folding types of products. TechWeb