[bryanlarsen]

Qualcomm's primary revenue stream is patent trolling. They maintain a veneer of respectability by also selling chips, which they maintain by using anti-competitive patent bundling practices to kill off competitors before they can become competitive. (Intel & nVidia spent a lot of money trying to break into the wireless market but gave up because Qualcomm was selling a chip & patent bundle for the same price as just a patent license, essentially giving away their chips for free.)

So any read of this announcement must be viewed through that lens. How was this server business going to affect their patent license gravy train?

[wyldfire]

> Qualcomm's primary revenue stream is patent trolling

This is not fair. By describing Qualcomm as a patent troll, you dilute the meaning of this term. CDMA alone is a pretty huge development and has enabled lots of fantastic technology. Why shouldn't they be able to reap the rewards of their patent portfolio?

> How was this server business going to affect their patent license gravy train?

The two are mostly orthogonal. QCOM's facing three major challenges right now: (1) still reeling from a narrowly-averted LBO. (2) They're no longer getting some revenue while "renegotiating" its licensing agreements with heavy hitters like AAPL. (3) Their acquisition of NXP is in jeopardy as it's up to Chinese regulators and current geopolitics seem to be working against them.

Their big bets like server chips were a good hedge against smartphone market saturation but now QCOM wants to get leaner and more focused.

[bryanlarsen]

> By describing Qualcomm as a patent troll, you dilute the meaning of this term.

Limiting the term 'patent troll' just to non-practicing entities is a fairly recent development. The earliest cite for the term in the media is describing Stac Electronics as a troll in 1993, who were very much a legitimate business, if failing.

https://wordspy.com/index.php?word=patent-troll

[bryanlarsen]

> CDMA alone is a pretty huge development and has enabled lots of fantastic technology. Why shouldn't they be able to reap the rewards of their patent portfolio?

Because they agreed to license it for fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms. If they wouldn't have agreed to do that, it would never have become an industry standard.

And then they proceeded to break that agreement.

[wyldfire]

> And then they proceeded to break that agreement.

What makes you think that agreement was broken? The licensing terms haven't changed. Qualcomm's licensees (Foxconn et al) have been paying these royalties with the current terms since before Apple asked Foxconn to make the first iphone.

What has changed is that device manufacturers' prices are now very high. In order to respond to licensees' concerns, Qualcomm introduced a cap on the royalty.

[bryanlarsen]

> What makes you think that agreement was broken?

Rulings from the South Korean court system for one, and preliminary decisions in its court battle with Apple, for another.

[tooltalk]

I agree that some aspects of Qualcomm's licensing practices are clearly in violation of that agreement and US regulator ignored it too long. But I find it a bit shady that the Korean regulator didn't ask/allow Qualcomm to explain/defend their practices, or even to respond to accusations made by companies like Apple. In US lawsuit where Apple and Qaulcomm sued and countersued each other, Apple is accused of lying and misleading regulators about their exclusivity deal, which resulted in Qualcomm holding back rebates. So I think we should wait and see what really happened there.

Further. Apple's claim that Qualcomm violated FRAND in respect to royalty basis and rates is somewhat dubious at best -- never been upheld legally -- and does not demonstrate Qualcomm's licensing malpractices. Apple challenged pretty much every wireless patent holders (eg, Nokia, Ericsson, Moto, Qualcomm, etc..) and refused to pay claiming that the entire industry's licensing practices were in violation of FRAND, but ended up losing or settling every lawsuit, including the one with Samsung a few years back where Obama had to intervene to prevent Apple's sales import ban.

[baybal2]

Confirming this. People from Qinghua University Group do whisper around that Qcomm has their man in Trump's advisor's panel and T is effectively lobbying for them.

That "China must buy more American microchips" was pretty much about a single company.