> one vendor's kit I did look at explicitly stated their boards were not licensed for that kind of commercial use. Qualcomm could very well make their boards for development, test, and evaluation purposes only.
The "we have lawyers and lots of money to enforce things that are on shaky legal ground and you will likely settle instead of fighting in court" legal theory, I presume.
As far as I can tell, if they even attempted that, all they could do is deny any kind of warranty claims from you and try and stop distributors selling you any more of their brand parts.
Patents are exhausted on first sale. If you sell me a board that uses your patent, I can do anything I want with that board. At least that is my understanding, IANAL and all...
However, if they are distributing SDKs or something separately from the hardware, that software could have its own license that forbids commercial use.
Under what legal theory?