Apple wants Samsung to pay $40 for every Galaxy smartphone, reports FOSS Patents.
The ongoing legal tussle between Apple and Samsung is about to take a new turn with the Cupertino demanding an average of $8 for each of the five Apple patents that are used against Samsung in the second U.S. lawsuit that’s set to start later this month.
On the other hand Samsung is planning to charge Apple a royalty of 2.4 percent of iPhone sales for the use of patents that are considered essential for certain wireless standards.
According to the new documents uncovered by FOSS Patents, Apple is requesting this licensing fee for the five patents – phone number tapping feature, unified search, data synchronisation, slide-to-unlock, and auto complete.
Apple reportedly wants Samsung to lift up the prices of its smartphones in order to accommodate this licensing fee, passing on the expense to the consumer or the carrier giving out subsidies.
Intellectual property analyst, Florian Mueller reports that “the highest per-unit royalty estimate” till date was in the $10 range for Nokia’s entire standard essential patents (SEP) and non-SEPs. Similarly, Microsoft is charging Android device makers $15 to $20 per unit for its whole patent portfolio.
“Apple’s royalty-type damages claim for five software patents is all so far out of the ballpark of anything that has ever been claimed or rumored to be paid in this industry for entire portfolios,” wrote Mueller.
Mueller points out that this new $40 per-unit request conflicts with Apple’s previous actions. In the first California Apple v. Samsung trail, Apple’s per-device ask was a fraction of its demand now. The per-unit claim for “pinch to zoom” was $3.10 and for “over scroll bounce” and “tap to zoom” it was $2.02 a piece. That’s a total to $7.14 for three patents.
