Apple and Ericsson Reach Licensing Agreement to Settle Dispute Over Cellular Patents

Apples m. o.: Steal first, pay later.

Apples m. o.: Steal first, pay later.

Apple only pays later if Apple can't bankrupt the other company with lawyer fees and other costs.

Apple's sitting on a pile of cash so they can afford to drag out cases for a long long time by appealing and counter suing.

Waiting for the apple fan boys to blame this on Ericsson somehow

Meaning that you're trying to dodge criticism of your own highly partisan opinion by preemptively calling names. You've been studying the Putin theory of argument, I see. But I'll take your bait and give you a very realistic and non-partisan explanation for why you can't actually pin this entirely on one party, as you clearly want to.

Consider a situation where there are 2 parties. One has a thriving product, and the other used to have a thriving product but now mainly sells licenses to essential patents that are, because they're essential patents, supposed to be FRAND. But, taking advantage of the essential nature of those patents, the second party demands a price far in excess of what other essential patent holders ask for their licenses, and also more than it charges party 3, 4, and 5. Party 1 considers that a violation of FRAND. Party 1 says, "We're fully willing to pay a FRAND price, but party 2 is asking unreasonable and discriminatory fees." Both parties feel they're in the right. What will happen is that the two parties will litigate and eventually (hopefully) come to some quasi-amicable solution. Each party looks at the other and says, "I was fully ready to pay/license but the other guy's terms were outrageous." A reasonable person could look at this and imagine that Party 1 was probably asking a miser's price, and Party 2 was asking for an amount that was neither fair nor nondiscriminatory. But a really rabid fan-boy of party 2 or a really rabid troll hating party 1 will instead eagerly rush to say, "See? All party 1 ever does is steal!" And gosh. That was you. I'm sure you know exactly how much Ericsson asked initially, and how much the other essential patent holders were getting, though. Because you'd never just jump in like an idiot and start calling names before you actually knew all the facts. Would you?

Waiting for the apple fan boys to blame this on Ericsson somehow

This happens every few years, and seems to be a standard negotiation tactic among everyone in the industry. It's almost as if the IP lawyers coordinate this disputes amongst themselves so they can keep their jobs.

Typical outcome when big companies sue each other over patents