Thursday, November 30, 2017

There’s an implosion of early-stage VC funding, and no one’s talking about it



Shortly once the announcement of the iPhone X in Sep, my colleague Natasha Lomas noted the similarities between the phone and the way WebOS operated on the Palm Pre. She concluded her article, noting “in the iPhone X it’s clear you’re watching a trifle ghost of the Pre.”

It looks that Qualcomm’s legal team was taking note; they cited that line during a grievance alleging that Apple ripped off Palm’s proprietary interface.

In the latest increase of the nearly year-long legal battle, Qualcomm filed 3 complaints weekday in U.S. District Court alleging violations on sixteen completely different Qualcomm patents by Apple, some associated with RF transceivers and power-saving measures, some associated with multi-touch displays and a few associated with the innovations of Palm.


Why will Qualcomm care regarding Palm? Well, in 2014 Qualcomm bought a bunch of Palm patents from H.P., some apparently associated with the company’s style selections for WebOS and therefore the Pre. within the grievance, Qualcomm specifically alleges that Apple traced the operative system’s “cards” style interface.

Other alleged patent violations embody the practicality to retort to a decision with a text rather than respondent, the power to refocus the camera by sound on the screen and therefore the plan to pull multiple uses out of the facility button, together with ending a decision.

“All of those Palm inventions—owned by Qualcomm—have immensely improved the practicality of mobile devices and therefore the user expertise, and every one of them square measure wide found in Apple merchandise while not license or permission,” the grievance reads.

These square measure accusation bound to piss off Cupertino.

Apple CEO Tim Cook wasn’t believed to be too happy once the Pre surfaced as we have a tendency to noted within the Sep story. “We don’t mind competition, however if others chisel our holding, we'll chase them,” Cook same of competitors throughout a 2009 earnings decision. several took this as a dig at Palm.

Many of those technologies feel essential to most up-to-date smartphones, however things are becoming personal for Qualcomm, that is enjoying David during a major legal battle with Apple, that has possible contributed to curtailing profits at the technology firm. Nearly a year agone, Apple filed a $1 billion suit against Qualcomm and proceeded to chop off royalty payments whereas encouraging its suppliers to try to to identical.

All the whereas, Apple has reportedly been building iPhone prototypes that eradicate usage of Qualcomm technologies altogether.

Qualcomm has remained insubordinate, difficult Apple on alleged patent violations. The rhetoric has been robust, too; during this grievance, Qualcomm says that Apple’s merchandise “would lose a lot of of their client appeal” while not Qualcomm technologies.

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