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Comment by chollida1 | Hacker News Reader

> 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.

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Maybe the parent's point is that AAPL could buy QCOM outright three times over with cash on hand alone, so nothing could possibly move Apple's needle much anymore, except sales or lack thereof.

My impression is that the lawsuit was depressing QCOM but not affecting AAPL, and so the resolution of the lawsuit of course buoys QCOM without affecting AAPL.

Yes, because Apple was expected to prevail, and QCOM by folding, curtailed risk that was built into its price.

Was that really the case that they were expected to prevail? They agreed to the terms and decided to renegotiate afterwards, instead of after the expiration of the agreement. If they thought the terms were unjust then they should have designed QCOM parts out beforehand or brought a suit then. QCOM offered a royalty cap in order to avoid the problems they described ("we add NAND and they charge a bigger royalty", "cost of the couch based on the price of the house", etc).

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.

I don't think there was any consensus that Apple was expected to prevail.

They may not have technically won, but the expected damage to them of a long battle would likely have been less than that to Qualcomm.

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