> I wasn't asking your opinion on what wireless licensing ought to be; this licensing model has long been upheld by regulators and accepted by companies around the world for decades. Even China's antitrust regulator NDRC who fined Qualcomm to the tune of $975M last year supports their royalty model (https://www.winston.com/images/content/1/0/v2/100610/HarrisJ...):
That's nothing much than a political move to appease USA. There is really no law in China that ever says any of terms named, they (NRDC) made it up on the go. From standpoint of Chinese legal system, there are simply no legal reasoning for that. Because to them it sounds like: "if you don't buy our chips, we will sue you," and that doesn't make any sense to the judges. In Chinese, the judgement effectively read like "we make a concession for you because big papa is behind you."
When Qualcomm was suing Nokia and Siemens a decade ago, German courts, I think, threw out more 10 of their lawsuits out of the court.
China's NDRC's antitrust findings were later affirmed by counterparts in South Korea, Taiwan, and the EU who found the same violations in their investigation in 2016 and 2017. Now, are you also arguing that there is no law in those countries/union and they just made it up on the go like China?
And appease USA? As I noted earlier, Obama's USFTC filed a lawsuit challenging Qualcomm's licensing practices. Who exactly was the NDRC appeasing? Qualcomm or USA? The NDRC's action is contrary to the USA's policy and China isn't going to win new friend by contradicting US's policy goals.
Again, the system level licensing is not only widely accepted and upheld industry practice. Take another instance of the UMTS IPR Association's statement on system level licensing in wireless industry:
" ...
The royalty “collection point” shall be the last manufacturer in the manufacturing
“chain.”This means that chip and subsystem manufacturers shall be indemnified for sales
made toLicensees of certified Essential Patents who are the last manufacturers in the
“chain.”Licensees shall not include those manufacturers of component products which
are incorporated into final assembled products for which royalties are paid to their
respective Licensor(s)
..."
* 3G Patent Platform for 3G Mobile Communication Systems – Definition, Function,Structure, Operation, Governance, UMTS IPR ASSOCIATION, Section 8.2.6 (June 15, 2000)
That's nothing much than a political move to appease USA. There is really no law in China that ever says any of terms named, they (NRDC) made it up on the go. From standpoint of Chinese legal system, there are simply no legal reasoning for that. Because to them it sounds like: "if you don't buy our chips, we will sue you," and that doesn't make any sense to the judges. In Chinese, the judgement effectively read like "we make a concession for you because big papa is behind you."
When Qualcomm was suing Nokia and Siemens a decade ago, German courts, I think, threw out more 10 of their lawsuits out of the court.