Chutzpah: Google also wants 2.25% of every iPhone sale
It's not enough that Google borrowed the phone's look and feel to make Android? — From Google's IEEE letter. Source: FOSS Patents. Click to enlarge. — It took a Techmeme news cycle for the import of Google's (GOOG) …
Context & Ripple Effects
Google and Android had already been cast as participants in a mobile patent-protection racket, where intellectual-property claims can shape handset economics as much as product competition. Google's IEEE letter brings that conflict into the iPhone supply chain, seeking a per-device share rather than a one-off settlement.
First-order effects
- Apple faces a proposed 2.25% royalty burden on each iPhone sale, while Google gains a direct negotiating claim against its principal smartphone rival.
- The demand puts Google's licensing position before the IEEE, widening the dispute beyond Android-versus-iPhone product competition.
Second-order effects
- Other handset makers and patent holders gain a more explicit reference point for per-device royalty demands, raising the stakes in mobile licensing negotiations.
- Apple has added incentive to challenge the terms in standards settings and negotiations, because any accepted rate would affect every iPhone sale rather than a limited product line.
Third-order effects
- If per-device demands become an accepted route for standards-related claims, smartphone competition will increasingly be shaped by royalty stacks and the bodies that set their licensing norms.
- The conflict reinforces the broader shift toward patents as strategic leverage between platform rivals, not merely as protection for individual inventions.
The trend: Mobile platforms are becoming patent-licensing adversaries, with standards-related royalty terms influencing the economics of competing handset ecosystems.