Two days ago, the bad reviewer saw a news:
Nokia sued OPPO in Germany because some OPPO models adopted its 2 standard essential patents.
As a result, OPPO lost the case, and the mobile phones could not be sold in Germany for the time being.
Seeing this, everyone was not surprised.
In the impression, Nokia and the feature phone is a pair of CP, bound to death, why oppo mobile phone will have Nokia's patent...
Well..
Put it this way, you want to change your phone right now, and Nokia is certainly not on your radar.
But in fact, if you buy a phone of another brand, you may still be stuffing Nokia with money in disguise.
That's because Nokia has a family of 20,000 patents that cover every aspect of mobile phone manufacturing.
When the mobile phone is stained with a little Nokia's patent, the manufacturer has to pay the corresponding patent fee.
Don't pay? That's the same as OPPO, hammered by Nokia.
For example, in 2011, after Apple was sued by Nokia, it not only paid a compensation to Nokia (estimated to be about 3 billion yuan), but also obediently paid its patent royalties in the future, 95 million euros per quarter.
For example, in 2014, Nokia found Samsung again.
Samsung confronted him for 2 years, and finally paid hundreds of millions of euros in compensation...
In addition, what Lenovo, Huawei, Vivo, basically a manufacturer, have been hammered.
In this way, nokia's name of "patent troll" slowly began.
As can be seen from last year's financial report, it earned about 156.5 billion yuan in annual revenue, of which patent licensing fees earned 10.6 billion yuan (1.502 billion euros).
Nokia's royalties can earn more, and many opinions on the Internet are that its patents are priced high.
Even after oppo lost the lawsuit, the relevant person in charge said that Nokia's patent was too expensive and resolutely opposed.
But in fact, we can compare the prices of major manufacturers.
Nokia's announced 5G patent fee is 3 euros.
That is to say, a mobile phone uses its 5G patent, and the mobile phone manufacturer has to pay Nokia $3.02.
And this price, Huawei is 2.5 US dollars.
Ericsson has 2 types, $5 for high-end models and $2.50 for low-end models.
Qualcomm is more complicated, based on the price of the phone and network support, the cap is $13.
In this way, the nokia price is only a little higher than Huawei, not as exaggerated as the old rogue Qualcomm and Ericsson.
Bad reviewers believe that ah, it earns more, the price is a certain reason, but the main reason is the number of patents.
According to data compiled by E-Ohm in 2019, Nokia ranks second in the number of 5G standard essential patents in the world.
This is also the result of China's efforts in 5G in recent years.
Image source billion ohm ▼
But if you think about it, mobile phones are not only 5G technology, but also 4G, 3G, 2G in the past.
When setting standards, who has advanced technology means that they have the right to speak.
Nokia was once a giant, in addition to the merger of Siemens communications department to get many patents, it invested in research and development every year, but also accumulated a lot of patents.
In 2015, 33% of Nokia's tens of thousands of patents were GSM standard essential patents, 25% were WCDMA standard essential patents, and 19% were LTE standard essential patents.
Among them, there are a large number of old patents that are still valid, which cannot be avoided in the process of modern mobile phone production and research and development.
In other words, as long as you sell your phone, you have to give Nokia a sum of money.
Some poor friends may ask, these Nokia patents, do they have to be used?
That's right, it's not necessary.
These patents are not ordinary patents, but SEP standard essential patents.
What do you mean?
In order to achieve a certain standard of the product, you must use this patent.
Let's take an inappropriate example.
If you want to sell kitchen knives, you don't mean to pull out a board and tell everyone that it is a kitchen knife.
Everyone does not recognize ah, you have to pass the relevant industry standards.
This standard is formulated by many kitchen knife dealers, and a knife must have a blade and a handle.
At the same time, these kitchen knife makers will also inform some of their own research and development, as long as the kitchen knife is not impossible not to use, such as sharpening knives.
Once everyone feels reasonable, the sharpening knife becomes the "SEP" of the industry.
Whoever wants to produce a knife in the future will have to pay a fee to the person who proposed the sharpening technique.
Similarly, you want to make 2G, 3G, 4G, 5G mobile phones, in order to be recognized, you have to meet the relevant communication standards.
Naturally, there is no way to avoid those SEP.
As a SEP capable person, Nokia is too familiar with this business, it is crazy licensing, crazy charging.
Outrageous no? Don't want to give?
Then Nokia will come to you with a hammer.
Although SEP is actually to protect intellectual property rights and protect the rights of developers, it does not mean that sep can be messed up.
To balance it out, we all came up with a FRAND principle.
This means that SEP owners should be fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory.
What is reasonable?
Sep can bring how much profit, the heart should also be a little forced, you have to refer to this profit, reasonable quotation.
What is fair and non-discriminatory.
For example, I have a 5G SEP, Tony is my competitor, I don't want to license SEP to him, he can't give money.
At this time, if Tony builds a 5G mobile phone, then I will sue him for infringement.
Or, I authorized Tony, but I saw that he was doing well in his little life, and the price was a little higher.
The 2 acts mentioned above are unfair and discriminatory.
With this FRAND rule, sep owners can be restricted to some extent.
For example, Qualcomm did not license 2G, 3G, and 4G technology patents to Intel and Mediatek.
At the same time, SEP and non-standard essential patents in different fields are bundled together for sale.
As a result, he was fined $865 million in South Korea.
But if you look at the definition of FRAND, what is fair and reasonable, these words are actually very vague, and it is difficult to judge whether it is reasonable or not.
There don't seem to be many SEP that have been by FRAND rules.
You see, Nokia's official website says that it abides by frAND rules and does not rely on patents to reach tens of billions of dollars every year.
No matter how unreasonable the mobile phone manufacturers feel, in the end there is really no way...
In fact, there is nothing wrong with collecting patent fees.
Patents are originally designed to protect intellectual property rights and the fruits of labor.
You don't charge, I don't charge, who is willing to spend money on research and development in the future, what breakthrough will there be in technology?
For example, from A to B, you must go through some number of roads.
These roads were dug out by some people little by little a long time ago, and they reasonably charged tolls to show others, and naturally they were willing to dig more roads and make everyone's life more convenient.
However, patents cannot be arbitrarily charged, which will only hinder technological breakthroughs.
In the last century, the Wright brothers, who invented the airplane, patented most of the aircraft designs, and whoever built the aircraft sued them.
Not only did the company on the verge of bankruptcy, but it also made many people afraid to invest in the aircraft manufacturing industry, hindering the development of the aviation industry.
Later, Roosevelt did ideological work for the Wright brothers, which led to the Wright brothers changing the 20% patent fee to $200.
Since then, the number of U.S. aircraft has skyrocketed, tens of thousands of pilots have been added, and the aviation industry has been able to usher in a spring.
You see, once the patent is rationally utilized, the patent fee is reasonably collected, which actually promotes the progress and development of technology.
So how to regulate these SEP owners, charge reasonable fees, and let the industry develop benignly.
Coincidentally, some time ago I saw a news that Nokia was investigated by the national anti-monopoly because of the problem of 5G patent licensing fees...
When a patent giant who contributes to technological inventions gradually becomes a patent troll who earns money by buying road money, the industry falls into a vicious circle, increases internal friction, and hinders the progress of technology.
I guess that's something the tech industry as a whole doesn't want to see.