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0 pointskimixa2y ago0 comments

While not "sue-ing" but instead the other way - being trying to avoid paying for patented tech. They tried to stop paying licenses for their PowerVR-derived GPUs, which they were explicitly developed from so no "convergent evolution" excuses. Announcing it to the market then caused a massive abandonment of PowerVR and stock price drop, and purchase at fire sale prices by a Chinese "Strategic investment" group.

It never even made it to court - and they have since scrubbed all statements about that, and to this day still pay for the architecture license. Just too late for PowerVR as an independent IP vendor.

Never be a supplier to Apple - they will screw you over.

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smugma2y ago

Foxconn and TSMC have good businesses on being suppliers to Apple. Sharp too until they got acquired by Foxconn.

kimixaOP2y ago

I might expand this to "Being a Tech supplier to Apple is a mistake" - they seem quite happy with exporting their labor-intensive costs, and whitewashing themselves of any "questionable" activities in the process.

TSMC is an interesting one, as they're pretty much the only person who have made that business model work, and even Apple's total business in that area is smaller than their scale seems to require.

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