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| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, August 29 2012 @ 06:33 PM EDT |
Did the jury read the Intel/Apple and the Samsung/Intel licenses for the base
band chips or did they just assume it covered Apple?
Were the licenses in evidence? And if they weren't, does that mean the jury
assumed facts not in evidence?
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| Authored by: Tkilgore on Wednesday, August 29 2012 @ 08:28 PM EDT |
Assuming that you indeed have accurately described all the relevant facts, your
post confirms and underscores the questions that I have raised.
Based upon your account, Apple appears to have avoided the need to license some
standards-essential patents, having neither joined a relevant patent pool nor
having been otherwise obliged to pay the patent holder. The fees which Samsung
wanted to charge to Apple do not in fact seem to be out of the bounds of FRAND.
For certain, what Samsung was asking from Apple was not totally out of line with
the 5% fee for participating in the patent pool.
The outcome surely violates what practically all the other big players in the
relevant industry have believed to be the prevailing rules of the road, backed
up by prevailing legal interpretation. And yet, Apple has gotten nothing but
good press and a favorable legal outcome for ignoring these particular Samsung
patents whereas Samsung has gotten nothing but bad press and an unfavorable
legal outcome --apparently for standing up for FRAND licensing and cooperative
efforts for pooling patents.
If this part of the jury's decision stands, the only possible good outcome is
that FRAND is overturned and is replaced by something better such as free
access, and that patent pools between the big players in an industry become
devalued or possibly even worthless because an outsider to the pool can avoid
any adverse consequences. If this does indeed happen, then it would probably be
good for Free Software. But it does seem a stretch to imagine that the law will
follow logic here. Moreover, even if standards-essential patents do become more
accessible and one finds that pleasant, the end does not necessarily justify the
means.
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