[aeturnum]

I work for Qualcomm, and I never would have expected it, but apparently this happens. There are groups that buy busted phones, get the Qualcomm cellular modem chips out of them, and then put those chips into new devices. It's significantly cheaper than licensing, and I believe the current tactic to fight it is firmware-based.

[makomk]

So basically, they're doing something that saves money and is good for the environment, but it cuts into your profits.

[wmf]

That sounds like a totally legitimate case of first sale, so it seems evil to fight it.

[aeturnum]

I get the impression the resulting products aren't particularly high quality and there's some notion of protecting consumers, but I would imagine the primary motivator is the loss of license fees.

[bloopletech]

I don't want to come across too harshly, since you've engaged in the discussion and revealed that you work for qualcomm, but:

Do you morally and ethically agree with the position that Qualcomm should get paid a licence fee for the firmware for each and every resale of a particular chip? (vs the spirit of the first sale doctrine)

At the moment, it seems that you're giving tacit approval to this position.

[aeturnum]

I identified myself as an employee of Qualcomm because, per policy, we're supposed to do so when discussing the company. :)

I think it's reasonable to sell the chips under a restricted license - you don't expect people to use the chip in a product you don't know about. Consider a metaphor using a collection of short stories. You include your story in an anthology, which lets the buyer re-sell it at will. However, it would be questionable for the buyer to remove your story, and re-bind it as part of another book, which they then sell.

These actions are not restricting the actions of customers in any way (as far as I know), so they seem ok to me.

Edit: sorry about the delay in reply!

[av500]

and these people are not able to copy/steal the needed driver binary from one of these phones?

[wmf]

They are, but it sounds like Qualcomm is trying to introduce some kind of driver DRM so that the driver will only work on "new" chips but not "used" ones.

[jdiez17]

What's the worst that can happen, right? Haha! Because DRM always works perfectly and the legitimate customer is never stung by it. Cool!

[kalleboo]

And I thought IP protection couldn't get more ridiculous than the Lexmark toner case.