How much is the patent fee in Qualcomm? Summary of Qualcomm Patent Fee Event

Is the patent fee in Qualcomm high? Remember the dispute between Qualcomm and Meizu before? It was because of Qualcomm's patent fee that the contradiction escalated, and then Apple got involved with Qualcomm on this issue. Let's see why Qualcomm's patent fees have inspired mobile phone manufacturers to speak out. Qualcomm Patent Fee Remember the reason for the tension between Meizu and Qualcomm last year? Just when almost all domestic brands compromised with Qualcomm to pay the patent fee, Meizu always insisted on not cooperating, saying that it had not settled with Qualcomm, so the patent fee was impossible. Meizu's view is that Qualcomm's patent fee is too high and unreasonable. According to Qualcomm's agreement, Qualcomm will license 3G and 4G necessary China patents for brand equipment sold and used in China, and charge 5% for 3G equipment (including multimode 3G/4G equipment) and 3.5% for 4G equipment (including 3-mode LTE-TDD equipment) that does not implement CDMA or WCDMA network protocols. The charging basis of each patent fee is 65% of the net sales price of the equipment. Give a simple example: a 2000 yuan mobile phone needs to pay 2000 yuan 65%5%=65 yuan's patent fee. In other words, the more expensive the mobile phone, the higher the price. However, the profit margin of domestic mobile phone brands has been kept at a low level, and naturally they don't want to be divided by Qualcomm for more money. Now, Apple has also started fighting with Qualcomm. A few days ago, Qualcomm issued a 134-page statement in the District Court for the Southern District of California, accusing Apple of infringement. In addition to demanding that Apple pay compensation for violating its commitments in several agreements, Qualcomm also asked the court to order Apple to stop interfering in the agreements between the manufacturers who made iPhone and iPad for Apple. In the lawsuit against Apple, Tang Qualcomm, executive vice president and general counsel? Rosenberg said: Without Qualcomm's core cellular communication technology, Apple could not have built such a successful iPhone series, nor could it have become the most profitable company in the world, earning more than 90% of the profits of the whole smart phone industry. In other words, Qualcomm thinks that the iPhone can't sell so well without me! When Apple saw this complaint, it felt very unhappy, so it responded that they did not comment on Qualcomm's application, but please note that in May 438+10, they said that Qualcomm's business practices and unfair patent fees, as well as the patent fees currently charged by Qualcomm are much higher than those of other manufacturers! Apple believes that Qualcomm has been unfairly charging fees for technology patents that have nothing to do with them. For example, the more innovations Apple makes in touch ID, such as display screen, camera and so on. It's unreasonable that Qualcomm will get higher patent fees. It is reported that Qualcomm charges Apple the highest patent licensing fee, which is equivalent to 4% of the price of each iPhone. An iPhone starts at 100 million yuan and sells hundreds of millions. How much do you calculate? In fact, in order to compete with Qualcomm, Apple began to choose Intel as the second baseband supplier for iPhone 7. Although Qualcomm has mass-produced the baseband of cat 12 or even cat 16, friends still stay on cat7, and the cost is lower. The problem is that because Intel chips use some key technologies from Qualcomm, Apple has to pay a license fee for these Qualcomm processors, which is based on the total value of the iPhone ($650) plus the total value of Intel chips (close to $20). Therefore, like most licensing terms, this will soon become complicated. In the short term, Qualcomm's advantage in communication baseband is still there, because somebody else's quasi-5G technology has come out. However, as long as Qualcomm does not change the charging standard of patent fees, mobile phone manufacturers will stick behind, but there are not many manufacturers like Apple who dare to provoke Qualcomm. Qualcomm's patent fees make some manufacturers yield, which is also the role of patents to protect their core technologies and generate profits. Obviously, patent application will also be the best way to protect their research results.