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At the height of Qualcomm’s litigious spree towards the end of the last decade the company was spending $200 million a year on legal fees trying to assert its rights to exploit CDMA technology which it was obliged to license under FRAND terms.
Nokia was the main recipient of Qualcomm’s ire but there were many others.
Memorably Qualcomm’s then CEO Paul Jacobs claimed: “We are not a litigious company”.
Now it’s beginning all over again with Qualcomm initiating a legal action in Beijing against 13 year-old smartphone manufacturer Meizu Technology in Guangdong.
Meizu, alleges Qualcomm, is refusing to pay licence fees for using Qualcomm technology and is refusing to negotiate in good faith.
Meizu, a consumer electronics company which moved into phones in 2008, is the 7th largest smartphone supplier in China with 8.9 million units sold in H1 2015.
It has the whimsical mission of selling phones aimed at delivering “a simple, intuitive mobile experience for people whose time is expected to be simply spent in using their devices, instead of figuring out the way of using them.” Now there’s a novel notion.
Meizu is currently using Samsung’s Exynos processor in its latest phone.
It will be interesting to see how Qualcomm’s battle-hardened, aggressive legal sharpies cope with the sinuous complexities of the Chinese politico/legal system.
It should be fun.
Absolutely SEPAM I’m sure you’re right. Qualcomm said they had successfully negotiated with 100 companies so this, as you say, is a test case for the stand-outs to see thegovernment’s attitude as expressed through the law courts. Maybe I’m over-cynical but I doubt if China has an independent judiciary.
>Memorably Qualcomm’s then CEO Paul Jacobs claimed: “We are not a litigious company”.
I saw him interviewed on TV as the Nokia wars started and he seems to believe in the “speak softly” approach. From a patenting point of view it was a huge war, all of Qualcomm’s patents granted in EPO were opposed by Nokia and I guess Qualcomm returned the favour.
As for the case in China my hunch is that this is to tet the waters and see if the Chinese will uphold their part of the deal. That is by no means certain. So it is best to see if it holds water as soon as possible and if not, cut the losses now.