I believe that it's classified as "Foxcon is making devices for Apple", not "Apple is reselling Foxcon devices". The difference being that no one else can buy and re-sell those same devices, and they were designed by Apple, not Foxcon. The underlying question, though, as I understand it, depends on the licensing. If Foxcon paid the patent license fee, then that ends it: the patent license fee is paid, and not passed on to the down-stream seller. It's like sales tax: you don't pay it twice (unlike VAT, which gets applied at every stage where value is added). If Foxcon, however, did NOT pay the patent license fee, passing that process on to Apple (the actual device owner), then there's the rub. And who is at fault will depend upon who dropped the ball. Was it explicitly in the agreement between Foxcon and Apple that Foxcon was selling the devices without patent licensing, leaving that to Apple. Or did both assume the other was taking care of it? Given that Apple's defence is "we haven't been given reasonable terms to pay", it doesn't sound like they can go down the "we thought Foxcon paid it" path. They're clearly acknowledging that they need to pay _something_, they just haven't agreed to reasonable terms with Nokia about it. So, that would, in turn, imply that, in whatever agreement Apple and Foxcon have, Apple is the party responsible for paying the patent license fees.