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.