Former Apple engineer claims idea for Qualcomm patent, does not seek inventor status

Former Apple engineer Arjuna Siva testified on Monday in the ongoing Qualcomm v. Apple patent trial, saying he came up with the idea for a Qualcomm patent-in-suit.

Siva described a system boot-related patent as "my idea," according to CNET. The engineer, now an employee of Google, added that he was "surprised" and "upset" when he learned Qualcomm had filed a patent application based on his input.

Apple argues that Siva should be named a co-inventor of U.S. Patent No. 8,838,949. Following Siva's testimony, lawyers for the company called U.C. San Diego professor Bill Lin to the stand, who backed that position.

Siva was a reluctant witness for the defense. On Thursday he suddenly dropped out of Apple's lineup, which prompted a war of words with Qualcomm. One Apple lawyer accused Qualcomm of witness tampering, even claiming she wouldn't try to bring Siva back since he was a "tainted witness." That angered the lead attorney for Qualcomm, who called the accusation a "personal attack."

Apple quickly backtracked, though, subpoenaing Siva to share testimony in court.

Asked why he remembers dealings dating back to 2010, when Apple was working with Qualcomm to bring the company's modems to iPhone, Siva said he was "proud" that his idea made it into a shipping product.

"It's something I really remember, and look back with fondness," Siva said. "I was a kid two and a half years out of college. I thought it was a pretty big deal for me."

All three patents in the case are power-related, the other two involving graphics processing and transferring data between a CPU and a modem.

Qualcomm is seeking about $31 million in damages, based on a fee of $1.40 per infringing device. Specifically the chipmaker is targeting iPhones with Intel modems — Apple began migrating away from Qualcomm once an exclusivity deal ended in 2016.

A pro-Qualcomm ruling could impact other ongoing cases, such as the lawsuit Apple launched in January 2017, finally set to go to trial next month. Apple accused Qualcomm of withholding nearly $1 billion in rebates as retaliation for cooperating with antitrust investigators, and decried its business practices in general. The chipmaker is known to pressure parts buyers into signing patent licenses at the same time.

That was just the beginning of a range of suits and countersuits, as well as government investigations of Qualcomm, in some cases resulting in millions of dollars in fines. A trial brought by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission with Apple's help concluded in January, though a verdict has yet to be published.

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35 Comments

coolfactor 2328 comments · 20 Years

About 5 years ago

But is there proof? Words don't mean anything without proof.

I hope Silva's testimony changes the balance in Apple's favour because this would show that Qualcomm has played dirty, stealing ideas and taking credit for them.

davidmalcolm 402 comments · 9 Years

coolfactor said:

But is there proof? Words don't mean anything without proof.

I hope Silva's testimony changes the balance in Apple's favour because this would show that Qualcomm has played dirty, stealing ideas and taking credit for them.

There are probably emails or other people who were in the meeting.

That said Qualcomm has already been shown being dirty AF. They’re trying to make a boat load off the iPhone even though they contributed very little to it, and what they contributed was for the purposes of Apple being able to use their chipsets. Which Apple was happy to do until Qualcomm wanted to charge them not based on the Qualcomm hardware in the phone but based on how much the end product cost.

ivanh 596 comments · 12 Years

Employee’s intellectual property rights should be a fundamental subject in every IT curriculum. Frankly I didn’t know that I could claim any IP rights from my ideas. Even now, I have no idea how to claim the rights of my ideas.

sflocal 6130 comments · 16 Years

coolfactor said:

But is there proof? Words don't mean anything without proof.

I hope Silva's testimony changes the balance in Apple's favour because this would show that Qualcomm has played dirty, stealing ideas and taking credit for them.

I want to think there is/are documents to prove just that. Meeting minutes, emails, etc... I don't think Apple would have resorted to having to subpoena the guy unless it was legit. He's being humble, but if he did in-fact come up with the idea, why he doesn't want his name as contributor to a patent is beyond me. It adds legitimacy to his background I would think.

Either way, just goes to that QC is not beyond similar stunts that other shops like Samsung and Chinese-brands would would do by ripping-off other's IP and contributions. I really hope QC get's thrown in the lion pit.

gatorguy 24597 comments · 13 Years

davidmalcolm said:

coolfactor said:

But is there proof? Words don't mean anything without proof.

I hope Silva's testimony changes the balance in Apple's favour because this would show that Qualcomm has played dirty, stealing ideas and taking credit for them.

There are probably emails or other people who were in the meeting.

That said Qualcomm has already been shown being dirty AF. They’re trying to make a boat load off the iPhone even though they contributed very little to it, and what they contributed was for the purposes of Apple being able to use their chipsets. Which Apple was happy to do until Qualcomm wanted to charge them not based on the Qualcomm hardware in the phone but based on how much the end product cost.

Qualcomm has ALWAYS charged royalties based on the phone cost AFAIK. They didn't suddenly change it because Apple was involved.

FWIW Apple has never paid royalties at the same high percentage of the device cost as some other licensees have. Because they're Apple and have such a volume they've negotiated reduced royalty rates compared to some of the smaller OEM rivals who didn't have the same bargaining power.

Personally I think the driver now is that Apple want's to dump both QC and Intel to produce their own chips (and soon) so IP licensing sans chip purchases now becomes a much bigger business priority.