创业与商业arstechnica.com
高通如何敲诈手机行业近 20 年
How Qualcomm shook down the cell phone industry for almost 20 years
2019 — 2022，它一次次回到首页
黑点是上首页（≥ 50 分）的那次投稿，空心点是没冲上去的投稿，点越大分数越高。
导读
Ars Technica 深度调查：高通如何凭借 CDMA 基础专利，把专利授权费与芯片捆绑销售，在近二十年里向全球手机厂商收取高额"高通税"。文章串起从早期 CDMA 推广到各国反垄断诉讼、以及与苹果的诉讼大战的完整脉络。
为什么经久不衰：它把一场旷日持久的专利与反垄断之争讲成了完整的产业史，而评论区里前黑莓、前高通员工的现身说法，让"授权费如何扭曲整个行业"变得具体可感。
HN 评论精选
前黑莓员工证实：高通的授权条款逼迫厂商重复研发、无法绕开其芯片。
作为前黑莓（RIM）蜂窝芯片部门的员工，这篇文章解释的很多事情让我肉疼。RIM 拼命自研 3G/4G 芯片，就是因为高通的授权费用和条款把公司扼得死死的。他们基本要求你另建一个蜂窝研发团队，重复一半的工作。所有基于 CDMA 的手机都必须用高通（QCT）的芯片，因为高通握有 CDMA 专利且不授权给任何人。而且高通技术虽强，一旦你想偏离他们的路线，就得不到任何帮助——基本就是"按我的来，否则免谈"。
guardiangod查看英文原文
As a former worker at Blackberry(RIM) cellular chip division (hello fellow RCT-ees), this article explains so much it physically hurts me. RIM pushed hard to develop its own chip 3G/4G chips because Qualcomm absolutely strangled the company with its licensing cost/terms. They pretty much demanded a separate cellular R&D team (QCT) that duplicates half the effort. All CDMA based phones must contain chips from QCT because Qualcomm holds CDMA patents and they won't license them to anyone. Finally, Qualcomm was, while very technically competent, will give you no assistance whatsoever if you deviate from what they want you to do. Basically 'my way or the highway.' Edit: As an aside, my heart goes out to Intel's defunct Infineon-based 5G modem team.
前员工：纯法务的专利授权部门比养着数千工程师的芯片部门更赚钱。
我在高通工作时，公司有两大业务线：一条是研发并向各大厂商销售移动芯片组（骁龙），养着成千上万的顶尖工程师和研究员；另一条是把 CDMA 专利授权给市场上所有玩家，这个部门完全由律师运作。第二条业务赚的钱明显多于第一条。
paxys查看英文原文
When I worked at Qualcomm a while ago the company had two major business lines. One of them was developing and selling a line of mobile chipsets (Snapdragon) to a lot of the major players in the market, for which they employed thousands of top engineers and researchers. The other was licensing their CDMA patents to all of the players in the market, and this org was run entirely by lawyers. The second business made significantly more money than the first.
高通当年的技术押注确有价值，值得专利保护；问题在于制度让专利变成长期勒索。
虽然我很讨厌高通，但当年押注 QAM 是巨大的生存赌博——要让线性度要求达标，很长时间里相关功率放大器良率惨不忍睹，只有罗克韦尔防务一家能做。公司如走钢丝，完全可能死掉。这类技术突破确实应得某种程度的专利保护。专利制度允许它被兑换成数十年的"收保护费"，和当年该不该给高通专利，是两回事。
bsder查看英文原文
As much as I really loathe Qualcomm, they placed an enormous existential bet on QAM and that they could make the linearity requirements work. For a long time, the power amps to make that work had an absolutely abysmal yield and only a single company (Rockwell Defense) could fab them. The company walked a tightrope and could very well have died. This is the kind of tech advancement that absolutely deserves some level of patent protection. The fact that the patent system allows this to be parlayed into a multi-decade shakedown is different from whether Qualcomm should have been granted patents initially.
提醒：文中提到的反垄断裁决后来被上诉法院推翻。
这一裁决在上诉中被推翻了。（附判决链接）
josaka查看英文原文
This ruling did not survive on appeal: https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=5420885724600138871
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