In 5 days in the USA, a trial will begin in which Apple and Motorola are brought face to face to conclude an agreement regarding the licensing of some FRAND technologies. Apple should license Wi-Fi or cellular technologies from Motorola, but the company's lawyers they stated that they are not willing to pay more than $1 for the license of each iPhone. The company's lawyers say that if the license will not exceed $1 for each iPhone, the first payments will already be made to Motorola/Google, but if the court sets a higher price, then the lawyers will exhaust all legal avenues to challenge the decision.
Apple has however been an outspoken leader in the industry on FRAND and has repeatedly urged that a rational and consistent framework for determining FRAND rates for wireless standards-essential portfolios must be set. Apple's actions in both licensing and litigation have matched its words in public. Because of that, Apple is willing to pay the FRAND rate this Court sets going forward if that rate is less than or equal to $1 per unit for its worldwide sales of covered products, as further discussed below in Section II.D.
Apple's lawyers are of course trying to manipulate the American court, but we are talking about FRAND technologies that must be licensed on reasonable terms, that is, at a very low price. Now it remains to be seen if Apple will manage to impose its point of view and if it will pay Motorola the licenses at the desired price, but I think that this process will not be solved that easily. Apple pays Nokia licenses for iDevice technologies, Motorola could follow, but everything depends on the price.
Motorola cannot offer evidence at this trial that the rate should be higher than $1 per phone, but to the extent the Court sets the rate higher than $1 per unit, Apple reserves the right to exhaust all appeals and needs also to reserve the right available to any party offered a license: the right to refuse and proceed to further infringement litigation. Make no mistake, that is not an outcome Apple desires. The parties have spent an exhausting two years litigating against each other around the world. But if the Court were to set, for example, the rate Motorola is seeking (2.25% of Apple's covered product revenue), that would amount to billions of dollars per year.
