Daily Tech Snippet: Tuesday, May 26

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• Smartphone ‘Cold War’ Seen in Asian Moves on Patent Licensing: South Korea and China are adopting antitrust policies that may require companies such as Apple and Qualcomm to license inventions to rivals more easily and cheaply, potentially giving Asian companies a leg up against foreign competitors. Brazil and India are considering similar paths. The clampdown on patents has the potential to alter the balance of power in the global mobile-phone industry, which generated $412 billion last year, according to IDC. These new rules may weaken the ability of Apple, Microsoft Corp. and Qualcomm -- typically among the top 15 U.S. patent recipients each year -- to compete in China, the world’s largest mobile-phone market, and other countries that follow. “We’re going back to the Cold War and the domino theory,” said Bradley Lui, an antitrust lawyer with Morrison & Foerster in Washington. “The authorities in China see the potential use of patents that might affect companies in China, including state-owned enterprises. It might be an impetus for drawing rules more broadly than we would in the U.S.” Asian regulators were spurred by the smartphone wars, in which tech giants battled over billions of dollars on four continents for more than four years. Foreign governments including Korea and China have been looking more closely at their patent policies, emboldened by debates in Washington over whether patents hinder rather than spur innovation. Qualcomm, which got 63 percent of profit from patents last year, has been investigated on three continents for its licensing practices. It struck a deal with China in February that gives domestic Chinese manufacturers a discount on the royalty charges while fining the company $975 million. Microsoft’s purchase of Nokia Oyj’s handset business has been approved by every country except Korea, which is looking for concessions on some of Nokia patents. In China, Microsoft had to accept lower royalties for patents that read on Google's Android operating system, which runs most of the world’s phones including those made by Chinese manufacturer ZTE. The Redmond, Washington-based company simply excluded Korean assets -- where it didn’t have many sales anyway -- from the Nokia deal.

• Snapdeal buys mobile commerce platform MartMobi: In a bid to strengthen its mobility platform for merchants, Snapdeal has acquired Hyderabad-based technology startup MartMobi for an undisclosed amount. The MartMobi platform enables e-commerce businesses, brands and retailers to have an instant mobile presence without writing a single line of code. A self-service platform, MartMobi can be used to create custom applications for retailers across all major mobile platforms, thus ensuring a new source of revenue for online ventures. MartMobi was founded in December 2012 by Satya Krishna Ganni (CEO) and Pramod Nair (CTO) – both serial entrepreneurs, who had earlier co-founded LearnSocial, aP2P learning platform that brings together people who want to teach something they are passionate about. Snapdeal has been on an acquisition spree as it seeks to compete with players such as Flipkart and Amazon for a slice of the $3 billion Indian e-commerce industry. In the recent past, Snapdeal has acquired payments and mobile recharge startup FreeCharge in a cash-and-stock deal while picking up stakes in digital financial services platform RupeePower and logistics venture GoJavas.

• Apple Names Jony Ive ‘Chief Design Officer’: Apple’s Jony Ive, the design genius often credited for Apple’s innovative and unique industrial design language over the past couple of decades, has taken on a new role at the company: Chief Design Officer. The new role elevates him above his previous SVP status, and also installs Richard Howarth as the new head of Industrial Design, and Alan Dye as head of User Interface. Ive’s new role should actually give him more time to actually design, the newly minted C-level executive told the Telegraph. He’s shedding some administrative and management duties to his two new lieutenants, he told the newspaper, and will instead be in charge of both UI and ID, as well as take direct control over retail store design around the world. In a book detailing Ive’s life and work at Apple, Leander Kahney has noted that the British designer has sometimes been uncomfortable with the administrative side of business, and instead prefers to focus on the craft of the actual design process. Ive also notably remains off-stage during Apple’s signature press events, and instead often narrates passionate paeans the company offers during the show in the form of video on the process of designing the products announced by other execs at the events.

• Baihe, a Chinese dating site where users flaunt their financial standing, bags $241M: Chinese dating site Baihe has announced it recently raised RMB 1.5 billion (US$241 million) in series D funding, according to Sina Tech. The investors have not been disclosed. Baihe approaches dating from an empirical and practical – some might say materialistic – perspective, with the end goal being marriage. Users are required to use their real names and are encouraged to share information like their property status and education. In other words, does this person own a home and have a good degree? Posting videos is also encouraged as they are more difficult to manipulate than photos. Members can verify their marital status to prove they aren’t seeking affairs. Recently, the site added a feature wherein users can post their credit score, as rated by a third-party private agency, to show they are in good financial standing. A member can only see information on other people’s profiles that they have shared themselves.

• As Facebook Sweeps Across Europe, Regulators Gird for Battle: Move over, Google. Facebook is the latest American tech giant that Europeans love to hate. For decades, European policy makers have taken aim at America’s giant tech businesses, trying to force them to play by European rules. In the past, Microsoft and Intel were found guilty of abusing their dominant positions to shut out rivals. Google has most recently been under the microscope, and it now faces accusations that it unfairly promoted some of its search products over those of competitors. In recent months, though, regulators’ gazes have turned to Facebook, raising questions about whether the social network has learned from the past mistakes of companies like Intel, Microsoft and Google when dealing with Europe’s policy makers and its legal system. And as Facebook runs into an increasing number of regulatory hurdles here, the scrutiny could potentially distract the company from its ambitions of becoming a one-stop shop for Internet messaging, online publishing and digital advertising. Facebook’s core business, its social networking service, is especially popular in Europe. The company has almost doubled its number of European users to the service, to around 260 million, since 2010. Facebook also has more users in Europe than in the United States, according to eMarketer, a research company. Regulators in Europe, however, are especially focused on how the company collects and handles those users’ data. The region has some of the world’s toughest data protection rules, and policy makers from France, Germany and Belgium are investigating whether Facebook broke Europe’s laws after the company announced a new privacy policy this year. If found to have breached the privacy rules, Facebook may face fines or demands that it change how the company handles people’s data, though the company says it complies with the region’s data protection laws. Taking a page from the playbooks of other American tech companies, Facebook has not stood idle as regulators steadily lined up against it. The company has hired a number of prominent former lawmakers and regulators, including Erika Mann, a former German member of the European Parliament. This month, the company also chose Kevin Martin, a former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, to champion its cause in Washington, Brussels and beyond. Facebook increased spending on lobbying 25 percent, to roughly $570,000, in 2013 compared to the previous year, according the latest figures available from the European Union’s voluntary database of lobbying interests, which may not include all of Facebook’s activities in the region.

• Chinese E-Commerce Giant JD Leads $70M Round In Online Produce Retailer FruitDay: Chinese e-commerce site JD.com is putting its money into fresh fruit and vegetables after it led a $70 million Series C round in FruitDay, a company that sells fresh produce across China. The investment in six-year-old FruitDay, which claims to be China’s largest online produce firm, also included participation from previous backers Susquehanna International Group (SIG) and ClearVue. FruitDay imports over 80 percent of its produce from overseas, and it claimed to be on course to hit 10 million customers before the end of the year — up fourfold from last year. The company said in a statement that it will use the new capital to develop its infrastructure and logistics, hire new management and for general business development. It stands to benefit from more than just JD.com’s money through this alliance, however, since the duo have agreed to “a strategic cooperation” which will allow FruitDay to tap into JD.com’s own logistics and fulfilment network across China to help widen its service in the country. JD.com is commonly thought of as a lesser rival to Alibaba. That’s a pretty hard comparison to shake when you consider that Alibaba was responsible for the largest IPO in U.S. history last year — its current market cap exceeds $230 billion — but JD.com is different in key areas. The company, which is listed on the Nasdaq, and has attracted investment from Alibaba’s fierce rival Tencent, is building out an Amazon-like delivery model which includes its own warehouses — something that Alibaba does not — as this recent New York Times piece points out. Things start to get even more interesting if you pair JD.com’s infrastructure efforts with WeChat, the dominant messaging app in China which is owned by JD.com investor Tencent. JD.com already has a store on WeChat were customers can make purchases without leaving the app, and it could be an interesting medium for fresh fruit and vegetable orders — that’s something Line, another chat app, is pioneering in Southeast Asia right now.