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What do you mean? USB-C is covered by the same trademark licensing scheme (that isn't technically needed if you don't use the USB logo and use your chip's default vendor ID) as USB-A is, a $6000 one-time + $5000/year payment to USB-IF.

You only need to pay for the logo & trademark usage, not the port.

Even if you do pay, at $3500 for 2 years, spread across millions of devices, this amounts to pennies.

I don't think there's any licensing fees for the spec itself no? Only a small fee to the USB-IF non profit every year or 2 years (and there's sublicensers) for the logo and vendor id which shows spec compliance (Which is the same for micro USB I believe so i can't think of any non proprietary connectors customers would go for regardless.)

>This also bans cheap phones like these

I'd assume those new phones get a new iteration or 2 or 3 by that time regardless. It tends to go quite fast in the phone market.

Is this really that surprising?