Qualcomm and Apple agree to drop all litigation
apple.com
apple.com
- Apple pays Qualcomm a one time payment, no word on the size
- Qualcomm is up almost 18% while apple is flat which tells you who this affected more
- ends all ongoing litigation
- 6 year license and global patent license agreement that can be extended
NOTE global license here is important as there was talk of just a US based agreement before
- new chipset supply agreement so don't look for Apple designed chipsets just yet
- Qualcomm might be finally done with litigation. China fined it $975M and Korea hit it with an $865M fine. Though to be fair, both countries are hardly neutral in this and its very reasonable to see these fines as a form of tariffs to help their own domestic companies
- wasn't a court ordered agreement which means both sides came together to make this and it wasn't forced on them by the courts.
- Qualcomm reported incremental EPS of $2 on its website, that's a fair bit so this is probably a win for Qualcomm in the short term, note this doesn't mean its bad for apple.
- bring on the 5G iPhones now, perhaps this makes Samsung the biggest loser out of this as apple is now ready for the nextgen cell service and Qualcomm is no longer negotiation from a position of weakness
- QCOM's licensing model lives on, good for them, makes them a big takeout target now, could see $100 QCOM in that case, its at $70 now and was $57 at the start of the day.
For Apple, I'm sure they'll still a) work on designing their own modems and b) source modems from Intel.
This settlement does not say good things about Intel's progress on 5G.
But who knows what the terms of the deal are.
Apple can make their premium offering Qualcomm's 5G and have the tier(s) below that be Intel's LTE.
Well, they can't do that anymore, given Intel's announcement that they won't be making them.
Apple is over 10x bigger and had a better BATNA. Apple probably got most of what they wanted, even if Qualcomm's stock price is up more.
I Fully agree with you. however I stand by my statement that this affected QCOM more than AAPL.
It strikes me as brinksmanship in order to get a better deal for the next agreement: 5G chips. No surprise that it's part of the settlement. But yes, without a doubt, QCOM did mitigate risk by agreeing to the settlement. They only narrowly avoided an LBO.
Why would Apple put themselves in the same position again in 6-8 years?
Most likely the deal includes patent licenses so Apple can stop using QCOM. No way Apple agrees otherwise.
Apple was cornered in the 5G basedband chipset procurement before the settlement as the only viable solution was to ask Huawei (Huawei actually welcomed this :-) And now Apple's future iPhone is in a much better position in connectivity given Qualcomm becomes the chosen vendor again (before that, Samsung / Qualcomm weren't options).
To the extend of my knowledge of those talks, Huawei proposed "you buy the whole Kirin 990 SoC, no separate modem for you" and Apple walked out right away
I once thought of tech companies being ran buy bankers and lawyers as an American thing, but Chinese MNCs have since outdone US on that few times over
The FTC's antitrust case is still on and Judge Koh's pre-trial decision on component-level licensing must be reversed to preserve QC's licensing model.
That was a weird ruling IMO, this has been the status quo since prior to Apple's entry into the cell phone market. (Note that Apple's not even a licensee -- it's Foxconn's "device" that we're talking about here).
Not really. It primarily tells you what the market had expected and priced in, and how this outcome is viewed relative to those expectations.
For example, the market could have expected QC to get hammered, so an agreement that now only has a small effect would have a positive impact on stock price.
And of course, as others have pointed out, the >10x difference in market cap matters for relative impact on the stock price. Even if the absolute impact were the same, you’d expect AAPL to move 10x less.
There were two parts:
(1) Stock prices reflect market expectations as much (or more) than current realities. This includes the stock price prior to the current move.
So a 16% move could indicate that the market now expects a positive effect on QC where previously it had expected none. However, it could equally well reflect that the market previously expected a negative outcome, and the judgement will actually mean QC will not be affected in this negative way. We just don't know.
(2) It also depends on what you mean by "more". Let's say that there's a positive $2 billion effect. Is this effect greater on Apple or QC? If you view it in absolute terms, it's exactly the same effect. If you view it in relative terms, it is going to affect QC more than Apple, since QC is the smaller company.
However, if you take the latter definition, the OP's comment is a bit vacuous/redundant/tautological as Apple is always the bigger company. So the only meaningful statement we can make would be about the absolute effect, and this, once again, we cannot infer from the stock movement.
I also read somewhere that it also include litigation against apple's suppliers, who apple told to stop paying Qualcomm a while back. That seems pretty significant, if true.
Qualcomm's strategy has been to refuse to license their standards essential patents to their cellular modem competitors, and instead go after device makers.
Judge Koh in the Qualcomm vs. FTC antitrust trial has already issued a ruling that Qualcomm may not continue to refuse to license it's standards essential patents to it's competitors.
https://jolt.law.harvard.edu/digest/ftc-v-qualcomm-standard-...
Apple sought a ruling in this case that once Qualcomm's rival modem makers received a license to Qualcomm's standard essential patents on FRAND terms, Qualcomm's patents would be exhausted, and they could not continue to seek additional fees (a percentage of the retail price of the entire device) from the device maker.
This has a huge effect on profitability because the courts have already shut down Google's attempt to price gouge Microsoft for a percentage of the retail price of Microsoft's XBox over standards essential FRAND encumbered patents back when Google owned Motorola.
>In a closely watched case, a federal judge has determined that Motorola is entitled to millions -- not billions -- of dollars in compensation for Microsoft's use of certain standard-essential patents.
U.S. District Judge James Robart ruled Thursday that Microsoft should pay Google's Motorola Mobility unit $1.8 million a year in royalties for use of wireless and video coding patents it used in the Xbox and its smartphones.
Motorola had demanded Microsoft pay royalties of $4 billion for use of patents that are part of the H.264 video and 802.11 wireless standards, which is baked into Windows and the Xbox video game console. Microsoft was willing to pay a royalty, but not at the 2.25 percent of the product price that Motorola has sought.
https://www.cnet.com/news/court-sides-with-microsoft-over-mo...
Given the percentage of Qualcomm's bottom line that comes in as licensing fees, getting paid a FRAND appropriate licensing fee set by the courts instead of a percentage of the retail price of the whole device would have been absolutely disastrous for Qualcomm's bottom line.
The Constitution patent clause grants Congress the right to "To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries." Would this ruling not, under that clause, be unconstitutional? Qualcomm is making use of its exclusive right. I agree they've got some rather bad business practices, and the FTC could try to get a ruling that they had to only charge for the chip, but I don't understand the way that ruling is worded.
I feel like the media model, the whole "you only buy a license" mess, is leaking into physical stuff. You now must buy not only a chip but a license? Why would a company choose that business model?
To summarize, I feel that it's not the best business practice, but don't understand why Koh ruled as she did and how she could justify the ruling's constitutionality.
This was core to Apple's argument. Qualcomm was insisting on unreasonable licensing rates for standards essential patents. I don't know who was right or wrong, but that was the position.
More importantly, point me to the clause in the Constitution that says, "unless other people really really want it". If any thing, would restriction of a standard not promote a competitor? For years, h.264 licensing was necessary. Now we have AV1.
Should contracts only be legally binding until you no longer like the terms you have agreed to?
Which 2? If you mean GSM and CDMA, they're effectively dead (yes, I am aware legacy 3G networks are still in use some places). LTE killed them both.
The constitution allows Congress to create a patent system. It doesn't require them to issue patents at all, much less without qualifications.
Moreover, promoting the progress is a trade off. Suppose various entites had two hundred standards essential patents. This is actually less than the number of patents on a device like an iPhone, which follows standards for everything from wireless to USB to TLS. Then if each of the patent holders wanted 1% of the total device price, there wouldn't be iPhones because they'd lose two dollars for every one they made.
In principle that isn't in the interests of the patent holders, because if there are no iPhones then they collect no royalties, but it's basic tragedy of the commons. Every patent holder has a blocking patent, they all want the device to be profitable enough that it's produced, but they also all want the other patent holders to be the one to reduce their percentage in order to make that happen and between coordination problems and brinkmanship it can easily sink the whole endeavor.
Moreover, if entities holding blocking patents could charge whatever they like, then there would be reduced incentive for anyone else to make further progress because the holders of the existing patents continuing to charge their existing rates would automatically capture the new value that should go to the new inventor when the value of the device increases.
So given that "promote the progress" is a trade off, giving Qualcomm a monopoly on the whole world is clearly not a good way to optimize it.
Under ETSI, where most of QCOM's SEPs (standard essential patents) are declared, licensing SEPs only to end-device makers is consistent with FRAND terms. It's essentially a contract law under French law. While there aren't too many case laws to precise define what is deemed FRAND, in Dec 2018, judge Gilstrap ruled in support of end-device licensing scheme in HTC vs Ericsson ("District Court Holds That FRAND Commitment Does Not Require Licensing at Chip Level").
Another thing to consider is that most SSO's (standard setting organizations, eg, ETSI) usually don't set out precise terms of licensing rates or basis, in part their fear of breaking local antitrust laws*. Instead, ETSI allows reliance on existing industry common practices and the courts have used "comparative analysis" (ie, licensing practices by similarly situated SEP holders) to determine what is "fair," "reasonable," and "non-discriminatory." So for instance, in Microsoft vs Moto, Moto's patents weren't as large in number or significant in contribution to justify Moto's demand, in addition to being completely out of whack with the common licensing practices embraced by the industry. By contrast, it's widely accepted that Qualcomm is a significant contributor to various wireless standards and holds large seminal/essential SEPs -- QCOM's case is nothing like Motorola's. Further, in the wireless business, it's a common industry practice for SEP holders to collect royalties at the end of the supply chain, ie end-device makers, for simplicity and maximum monetization; and this custom has been embraced and practiced for the past two decades.
In a pre-trial decision last November, however, Apple's hometown judge Lucy Koh, sided with the FTC that under ATIS/TIA FRAND obligation (yes, there are competing SSOs with overlapping FRAND terms apparently). I'm not entirely sure why Koh's novel decision has precedence over ETSI FRAND where QCOM's SEPs are actually declared, but I'm pretty sure it would be appealed and reversed in next year or two.
That seems like a weak argument given how slowly courts and regulators move on things like this. By the time they get around to telling you to stop doing something you're already claiming that it's an established practice.
And there is no simplicity there because there are more end device makers than chip makers, so "maximum monetization" is precisely the issue -- they're claiming more than they brought to the table using a manifestly unreasonable practice.
Surely Qualcomm is not entitled to the same percentage of a $1M house that a wireless router is installed in as they are of the $100 wireless router to begin with, or the same percentage of a $100M commercial jetliner when it has in-flight wireless. They are not responsible for any of the difference in value between a $100K house and a $1M house, what reasonably entitles them to a percentage of the difference?
If one iPhone is worth $300 more than another because it has a bigger screen and faster processor but the exact same wireless capability, why should Qualcomm receive any of the additional money?
Not really. We are talking about industry practices that have been around for two or three decades now and precede the development of various wireless standards created by the SSOs.
> And there is no simplicity there because there are more end device makers than chip makers, so "maximum monetization" is precisely the issue -- they're claiming more than they brought to the table using a manifestly unreasonable
That's not true. We are not talking about at the baseband level, but there are also many others who operate at different level (ie, Skyworks) which complicates the licensing. If we are to follow SSPPU, SEP holders would have to go after everyone from end device makers (Apple), to baseband chips (Qualcomm), to power management chips used in baseband chips (Qorvo), to etc... as QCOM's patent portfolio covers many different areas of wireless communication. The end-user device is one single aggregation point that embodies all patented features and where royalty collection is simpler.
> Surely Qualcomm is not entitled to the same percentage of a $1M house that a wireless router is installed in as they are of the $100 wireless router to begin with, ...
Sure, if QCOM can demonstrate that QCOM's patented features are a) an integral part of the $1M home, b) add significant value and c) drive market demand for that $1M house, yes. In another word, if QCOM's $100 wireless modems is an essential part of the 1M house, significantly enhances the market value (eg, $1M with $100 modem, $300K without it), and attracts home buyers, that's very legit. QC's $100 wireless router in a $1M house or a $100M jetliner however wouldn't pass this test in reality -- no sane buyers would pay such premium for features that are not essential in aviation or housing business. But can you say the same for wireless mobile devices?
> If one iPhone is worth $300 more than another because it has a bigger screen and faster processor but the exact same wireless capability, why should Qualcomm receive any of the additional money?
Yep, Apple's iPod Touch is almost at feature parity with the iPhone, but without QCOM's patented features. The Touch sells significantly fewer units despite its significantly lower price (even lower than that older iPhones with LCD and low capacity memory/storage). In this case, QCOM can argue that their $30 modem + wireless patents are integral part of the wireless mobile product, add significant value and drive market demand for their iPhones, that most consumers wouldn't otherwise buy at that price point.
That's an eternity in tech years but barely overnight in court years. An individual court case can take a decade to come before the Supreme Court, and first that case needs to make it into court to begin with and then not be settled (as the vast majority are) before the court has the opportunity to set a precedent.
And Congress typically doesn't get involved until after the courts have done something sufficiently problematic.
> We are not talking about at the baseband level, but there are also many others who operate at different level (ie, Skyworks) which complicates the licensing. If we are to follow SSPPU, SEP holders would have to go after everyone from end device makers (Apple), to baseband chips (Qualcomm), to power management chips used in baseband chips (Qorvo), to etc... as QCOM's patent portfolio covers many different areas of wireless communication. The end-user device is one single aggregation point that embodies all patented features and where royalty collection is simpler.
Isn't the baseband chip the SSPPU in all of those cases? How is that not the single aggregation point?
> Sure, if QCOM can demonstrate that QCOM's patented features are...
The point is that they can't. Otherwise why do two devices with the exact same wireless capability, even the exact same wireless baseband chip, have significantly different prices?
> Yep, Apple's iPod Touch is almost at feature parity with the iPhone, but without QCOM's patented features.
Not just without Qualcomm's patent features, without the entire wireless standard that they cover. The whole point of treating standards essential patents specially is that compatibility with the standard is worth significantly more than the contribution of any individual company's patents, because it's a holdup for the ability to implement the standard and communicate with the cellular network.
That sounds like a lot of nonsense. No, it isn't the lack of time or convoluted legal process hindering the industry or discovery of such licensing violation. Companies like Apple, TCL challenged the wireless industry, but lacking evidence or substance to back up their argument, Apple usually settled at the last minute (take for example, Apple's lawsuit against Nokia in 2008, 2016). When there was a realm full case (Samsung vs Apple, USITC 337-TA-794), it found Apple's abuse of FRAND obligation by reverse hold-up, and Apple subsequently lost all of its claims on Samsung's FRAND violation (even Apple's own ETSI FRAND experts came out testifying against Apple).
> Isn't the baseband chip the SSPPU in all of those cases? How is that not the single aggregation point?
No, there are other components, according to Qualcomm, that are not embedded in the baseband, such as security framework.
> The point is that they can't. Otherwise why do two devices with the exact same wireless capability, even the exact same wireless baseband chip, have significantly different prices?
If your gripe is your inability to understand what a percentage-based licensing model is (vs per unit price, vs exclusionary, vs lump-sum models), I can't help you there. I already explained to you why the wireless industry's licensing is fair and gave you various legal analysis/factors courts consider to determine fair, or at least to weed out extortionate, licensing schemes in patent cases. In your hypothetical $1M house, I clarified that the patents wireless features don't add any value or create market demand for $1M house, so that's a no-go. However, for mobile devices like Apple iPhone, the wireless SEPs are not only intrinsic part of the product, but also significantly increase the market value (by 100%-200% in comparison to the iPod Touch) and creates market demand that wouldn't otherwise exist . Some, eg, TCL vs Ericsson, like judge Selna ruled and estimates that 10% of wholesale end-user device is an appropriate aggregated FRAND rate for the whole 4G stack; while China's NDRC believes domestic Chinese companies deserve some more discount (about 50% of whatever everyone else deems fair; or 5% of end-user device).
> ... The whole point of treating standards essential patents specially is that compatibility with the standard is worth significantly more than the contribution of any individual company's patents, because it's a holdup for the ability to implement the standard and communicate with the cellular network.
Sure, and these goals of wireless standards don't preclude SEP holders from profiting from their invention. FRAND commitment doesn't mean charity. FRAND obligation and wireless standards don't exist solely to serve device-makers's interest and to increase their bottom-line. The industry licensing model as it currently stands enables SEP holders to partake in end-user makers sales while lowering the licensing burden by new low-cost mobile device makers. They achieve all that in addition to promoting wide industry adoption, inter-operability of their technical standards.
You could theorize potential abuses of hold-up, royalty stacking, etc all you want -- I have yet to hear any actual "hold-up" by wireless SEP holders, but there is at least one known case of "reverse hold-up" by a rogue unwilling device maker, Apple.
Funny you mention Samsung, because just a few days ago I read a blogger with contacts in S. Korea claimed that Apple asked Samsung to supply 5G for iPhones. But Samsung answered no as they are unable to meet the volume requirement as they are already busy with existing orders. Completely unsubstantiated and could just be some random rumor, but I find it interesting this news comes out days after that rumor.
Hmm.
It is not like Qualcomm settles with Apple to get into Apple's cellphones, it is a concession made to make them drop Intel and still pay them royalties after Apple finishes development of its own modem.
Apple been poaching Qualcomm's radio engineers for years ...for work in their Chinese RnD centre (no non-compete enforcement there)
I live in a poor reception area. With an iPhone + Intel modem, iOS reports 0 signal. With an iPhone + Qualcomm modem, I do get enough of a signal to make calls and receive SMS.
Unfortunately, WiFi calling on iOS has also gone downhill in recent years (ATT & VZW). It seems as though I have to have a bar or 2 of a signal for WiFi calling to work. If I have no cell signal, WiFi calling connects/disconnects every few minutes, even if I'm in the middle of a call.
I’d really, really like to have the latest hardware iPhone that handles cellular services in poor signal conditions. I don’t have a skin in the game as to Intel vs Qualcomm. I just want it to work well.
This story has been going on for years. Apple wanted to find a second supplier for the modems. They asked Intel but they underdelivered constantly.
Edit: spelling
"Intel to Exit 5G Smartphone Modem Business, Focus 5G Efforts on Network Infrastructure and Other Data-Centric Opportunities" https://newsroom.intel.com/news-releases/intel-modem-stateme...
Who nominally 'won' will depend on whether Apple is paying what it considers reasonable royalties going forward and whether the patent agreements allow it to utilize Qualcomm's IP in their own chipsets.
If Qualcomm has given up on tying patents to chips then it has effectively lost. If they can maintain that position with everyone but Apple, they'll probably be OK with the outcome.
Apple was forced to the table by its partner (Intel) being unable to supply 5G in a timely manner, so it may very well had to give up more than it otherwise would have.
Apple now has a direct license with Qualcomm. The arrangement before that was only the contract manufacturers had a license with them. It seems very likely that the patents and chips got unbundled (at least for Apple).
The FTC case still seems like the main risk to their business model.
I imagine the revelation of such a document played a significant part in driving Qualcom to settle. That, and their own suit which basically said, "Qualcom's licensing, that we agreed to, isn't fair" (yes, I know that drastically over simplifies the issue, but it is the crux of a portion of the dispute)
[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/04/16/apple-q...
My 2 cents.
I wonder if you just care about data and not voice, how much of this quagmire you can avoid? Ipads, watches, maybe Airs with data only chips, that'd be a lot of chips.
(2017) https://semiaccurate.com/2017/11/06/qualcomm-opens-apple-leg...
(2019) https://semiaccurate.com/2019/04/16/qualcomm-just-beat-apple...
That's also the reason why Intel is quitting 5G modems
Does anyone have insight into why that is?
It appears that QCOM got the better end of this deal.
Does anyone know of the $2 EPS [1] is due to the one-time payment or an annual EPS from the ongoing patent royalties?
[1] https://investor.qualcomm.com/static-files/3cb803e8-fc20-4ec...
It's a pretty big gamble to pay such a high premium and growing (up 3% after hours) unless your confident the settlement greatly benefited QCOM.
How stupid is that?
It deserves to be worth more and still has the lowest P/E ratio of all major tech companies (5.7x lower than AMZN).
If you think something is undervalued, buy it.
That stupid.
BTW, I say the market is stupid because I bought AAPL shares January 28th (a monday), and I've bet the market ever since, I've beat SP500, DOW, I've won AMZN, MSFT, GOOG, everything. I even won Warren Buffet.
And I'm selling now, because the market is also predictable.
I have no words for it, they do as they are told by the news. I do the contrary, this is a warning sign for me, I might miss 10%-20%, but it doesn't matter, 30% is good enough and not worth the risk.
Your arrogance is pretty typical of people investing for the first time. It's like buying a scratch off and saying, "Only an idiot doesn't know where to scratch!"
It's your prerogative if you want to believe that the market is stupid/predictable, or that you can invest better than people with billions of dollars in resources, but just ask yourself this: Why are you succeeding where others aren't?
I've been beating the market for quite some time.
Looks like the market doesn't go your favor. It went mine, so I'm right.
The market is stupid, the proof is that a company's value doesn't change in a question of months, but stock does.
> It's your prerogative if you want to believe that the market is stupid/predictable, or that you can invest better than people with billions of dollars in resources, but just ask yourself this: Why are you succeeding where others aren't?
Because very few of us are smart, and not me, because I'm small, but the big ones are controlling many dumb ones that believe the rhetoric they read anywhere online and for free. Specially the bots.
Now it's in the low 900's.
GOOG was once higher than Apple, now it isn't even in the 900's club.
Wall Street is dumb as a rock when it comes to technology and they invest heavily in industries they just don't understand.
My favourite example is cloud.
What is cloud: it's you renting computers.
No, it's not software, because people want a Hotel to go on vacations so they don't have to do the chores associated with living in a house (doing the bedroom, cleaning, etc.) and enjoy. Now, engineers, we want a reason to be hired, so PaaS doesn't have a point, SaaS has it's limited market, and IaaS is completly stupid.
There's a reason why the companies best aligned with doing cloud (those who make semiconductors) aren't aligning in it, is there a Intel cloud? A TSMC cloud? No!
Let them do the computer renting business, "it's the future", renting a thing that devaluates in value faster than a car!
5 months isn't normally anywhere near enough to integrate a new baseband chip and still get to market...
Public shareholders will never know anything.
I guess I'm just looking for the amount of money Apple agreed to pay—beyond the value of services/chips they will receive—in order to settle this lawsuit. If the accounting can be done that way.