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Comment by onion2k | Hacker News Reader

How much the fees should be and how Apple react to them are separate issues. Given the fact that Apple Retail UK posted a profit of just £39m in 2020 though, it seems likely that they'll have to exit the market as they won't be able afford even a reasonably low patent fee.

Assuming that their reported profit wasn't just a massive lie to avoid tax, obviously.

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In 2020, the UK was still part of the EU and with that Apple could and did move much EU based sales to Ireland for tax purposes. So with that in mind, along with how companies game the tax systems, I take any figure with a pinch of salt.

That said Apple postulating this as retaliation to a legal court case pertaining to a valid patent, does seem a bit purile.

But the real question I have is - if these are core patents as they seem to be (not read the patents but mention of 3g and 4g connectivity mooted) then I would of thought FRAND would take presedense

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_and_non-discriminat...

Even when outside of the EU, this is still very much possible. The cayman islands aren't part of the EU or US and still very popular tax havens.

This _is_ a FRAND case, which is why the decision will cover global licence payments.

"An estimated 19,452 iPhones were sold every day in the UK in 2019", give them a break, obviously struggling to get traction.

So that's around 7 million phones per year. Assuming around £700/phone and 30% profit (very rough made up numbers), that should be £1.5B/year profit. If the judgement is for £3B to £5B as the article states, I can see why they might decide to exit the UK market. But that only makes sense if they don't then lose the patent cases in other juristictions, and end up having to pay similar royalties anyway.

I'm not sure that leaving the market will absolve Apple of paying the judgement, so staying in the UK market will help them recoup the cost. Leaving would be unlikely to improve their bottom line, so the judge was right - no evidence Apple will leave. This is just posturing, which won't go down well in front of a High Court judge.

Why would Apple pay the fine?

To avoid their executives going to prison.

Their executives in the US? Going to trial in the UK, where the company would no longer do business? How does that work, exactly? Has the US ever extradited a white collar criminal?

They have executives in the UK.

Why would they have executives in a country that they don't do business in?

They do do business in the UK, as you well know.

They wouldn't if they were fined, as the headline and article clearly state.

Exactly, they don’t seem to respect others’ legally enforceable IP, the engage in tax avoidance schemes…why would Apple pay a court ordered judgment for damages? Wait is that not what you meant?

I think the intent would be to avoid paying the fine. Without assets, revenue, or profit the UK wouldn’t have anything to seize to pay the levy.

The judgement holder could then attempt to go after Apple in other countries, but I think that would result in a court case about whether that’s possible or not.

The £3-5bn fee is a one-off payment (I think..), so you can't really compare it to a single year's profit. It'd need to be amortized against the lifetime of all the iPhone products that are covered by the patent.

Apple's profits fetch up in some tax-haven, as far as I'm aware. They have a problem, because they hold so much cash in tax-havens, that they can't repatriate without incurring enormous tax liabilities.

So yes, the reported profit was just a massive lie.

The reported profit is probably a joke, since they devize ways to under-report to pay less tax.

Bad global precedent can be far more expensive and damaging than a mere $39M.

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