Chapter 3191: Discuss separately

The pricing of patents is not what the developer wants to quote. The current global patent system is already very complete, with a fixed charging model and a monitoring mechanism for patent rates. The pricing of patent fees must be linked to costs.

If the cost is low, the price will be low; if the popularity rate is high, the price will also be low.

It's like the price of medicine.

When a new drug is launched, if the cost of developing the new drug is very low, and if the new drug will be used on a large scale by patients around the world, then the price of the drug will be relatively low. On the contrary, if the cost of developing a new drug is too high, and the scope of application is very small and can only treat very unpopular and difficult diseases, then the price will be surprisingly high, and various sky-high drugs will appear.

So when negotiating with patent dealers, if you want to reduce costs, there are often two ideas.

The first is to help the patent owner reduce costs.

Costs include not only research and development costs, but also operating costs.

If the patent owner wants to disassemble all products on the market one by one, study their structure and the technical patents they use, and then use legal affairs to determine whether they infringe. Next, the legal team and negotiation experts will go out to negotiate with the relevant parties and ask for patent fees...

The cost of this process is extremely high.

The wool comes from the sheep, and this part of the cost will eventually be borne by the party paying the patent fee.

So the patent fee that Ericsson needs to pay for using Qualcomm chips will be very low.

Because it is a binding clause.

Ericsson does not need to spend additional operating costs, just wait for the money. The cost is low, and the saved costs can be used to make concessions on patent prices.

On the contrary, if Qualcomm chips are not used, Ericsson needs to disassemble and study the machines of each company, and then negotiate with each company...For the infringement of those companies that are too small, one eye must be turned.

These costs will naturally be borne by the party using the patent.

So, in order to reduce patent fees, the best way is not to worry about it, but to actively contact the patent owner at the source and pay the patent fee. Help the patent owner save costs, and once it runs in the patent pricing model, a more favorable quotation can be given.

Lee Jae-yong came to promote the cooperation between the two largest mobile phone giants in the world for this reason.

On the one hand, there is strength in numbers.

On the other hand, it is to save costs for Ericsson.

Ericsson should not set up different teams to connect with Samsung and Asda respectively. It can deal with both companies in one negotiation. It should actively face the price differences, and then negotiate in a unified way to achieve results in a more efficient way.

However, there is another way to reduce patent costs.

It is to drag down the patent party.

It is to waste time.

Many patent wars have to last for five or six years, or even longer. The annual legal fees and public relations fees cost tens of millions of dollars, and the competition is about who has more powerful financial resources.

You want to charge me high patent fees?

Okay, then waste time!

Just do it!

You can make $100 million a year by charging me patent fees. I will fight you hard and start a war. As a result, your annual "military expenditure" will be tens of millions of dollars... Not only can you not make a penny, but you also have to spend a huge amount of money every year, which has become a bottomless pit.

What should I do if I can't afford it anymore?

Then I can only admit defeat.

Forget it!

If you can't afford it anymore, then give in and lower the patent fee. At least you can make money. If you don't agree to a low patent fee, not only will you have no money every year, but you will also have to spend a lot of money, which is too much of a loss.

The two different strategies led to differences between Li Zairong and Zhou Buqi.

Samsung wants to reconcile quickly.

Asda wants to force it.

The reason behind this is that the levels of the two self-developed chips are different. Samsung's self-developed chips are more powerful and are widely used in mid-range phones. Asda's self-developed chips are still very weak and can only be used in a few experimental models of thousand-yuan phones.

However, Li Zairong made a special trip.

With his status, it would be too disrespectful to make an empty trip, and it would not be conducive to the cooperation between Zhou Buqi and Samsung.

Zhou Buqi needs to cooperate with Samsung to a certain extent. "All models of Estar priced above $200 can cooperate with Samsung's strategy and actively connect with Ericsson!"

Li Zairong is not stupid. He has studied Estar thoroughly. He smiled bitterly and said, "Models above $200? As far as I know, all Estar models above $200 use Qualcomm chips, even the baseband. There is no need to connect with Ericsson. Just pay the fee according to the bundling terms."

Zhou Buqi smiled and said, "Just because it didn't happen before doesn't mean it won't happen in the future."

"Oh?"

Li Zairong raised his eyebrows.

Zhou Buqi said: "Qualcomm's solution is so expensive, it's a plunder for mobile phone manufacturers. Abandoning Qualcomm's solution and using self-developed solutions can greatly increase the profit margin of mobile phone manufacturers. Samsung's mobile phone profit margin is higher than that of Asda. A very important reason is that you use more self-developed chips, leaving the profits for yourself instead of giving them to Qualcomm."

Li Zairong asked: "Will there be one this year?"

Zhou Buqi said: "Don't be anxious about this matter. Samsung has been making chips for decades, and Asda's self-developed chips have just begun. There is still a long way to go. You need to give me time. As time goes by, As Asda’s self-developed chip business matures, more and more models will use self-developed chips.”

Li Zairong's heart immediately dropped.

Depend on!

Draw a big pie!

Zhou Shaoning explained: “Models priced below US$200 are mostly for public welfare and are livelihood projects for poor areas and poor people. We do not make money in these projects. We have detailed data on this. It can be proven. There should still be a clear distinction between public welfare projects and commercial projects.”

Li Zaiyong was amused by him, "So you think mobile phones priced at more than 200 US dollars are commercial projects?"

Zhou Shaoning said: "Yes, most of the mobile phones in the world are priced at more than 200 US dollars. Only in some regions such as Africa, Latin America, the Indian and Pakistani subcontinent and China, there are some extremely low-priced smartphones. I I believe that business must also be ethical. It needs to be positioned differently for this part of the world.”

"So you want to talk separately."

Li Zaiyong sighed.

What he hopes most is to cooperate and talk together. The world's number one and the world's number two cooperate to occupy 60% of the global mobile phone market. This is very powerful and can put a lot of pressure on Ericsson.

Once Asda separates its business, its strength will be weak.

Especially now, Asda's mobile phones priced at more than 200 US dollars all use Qualcomm chips, so there is no need to talk to Ericsson at all.

"For models priced under 200 US dollars, Asda will connect with Ericsson separately. There may be a lot of controversy in this process, but you can rest assured that we will not involve Samsung, and we will not involve Samsung because of the cooperative relationship. ”

Zhou Buqi seems to be very friendly and still thinking about Samsung.

Zhou Shaoning added on the side and said with a smile: "Now Asda does not have self-developed chips priced at more than 200 US dollars. If there is one in the future, you can pay according to the negotiation standards for this cooperation. I believe this will be a good match for For Ericsson, it’s one less burden.”

Li Zaiyong couldn't express his pain.

I felt like I was being manipulated by these two people named Zhou.