Qualcomm Confirms Lawsuit Against Apple In China
Qualcomm Inc, the San Diego based chipset maker has filed a lawsuit against Apple Inc in China. Qualcomm seeks to ban the sale and manufacture of iPhones in the country, the company’s biggest shot at Apple in a bitter and prolonged legal fight. Qualcomm filed the suits in a Beijing intellectual property court claiming patent infringement and seeking injunctive relief, according to Christine Trimble, a company spokeswoman.
Qualcomm made the filings at the Beijing court on Sept. 29. The court has not yet made them public. Qualcomm wants to halt the manufacturing and sale of iPhones in world’s largest smartphone market. Apple’s iPhone business contributes to two-thirds of Apple’s revenue. In its statement, Qualcomm said:
Apple employs technologies invented by Qualcomm without paying for them.
Qualcomm’s suits are based on three non-standard essential patents. They include power management and a touch-screen technology called Force Touch that Apple uses in current iPhones.
In its response to the lawsuit, Apple said:
In our many years of ongoing negotiations with Qualcomm, these patents have never been discussed. Like their other courtroom manoeuvres, we believe this latest legal effort will fail.
The two companies are months into a legal dispute that revolves around Qualcomm’s technology licensing business. While Qualcomm makes the majority of its money from making phone chipsets, it rakes in most of its profit from charging fees for patents. The legal battle started in early-2017 when Apple filed an antitrust suit against Qualcomm arguing that the company’s licensing practices are unfair and that it abuses its position as the biggest supplier of chipsets in the market. Qualcomm has countered with a patent suit and argued that Apple encouraged regulators from South Korea to the U.S. to take action against it based on false testimony.
This isn’t an ideal time for Qualcomm either, just last week it was fined a record US$773 million by the Fair Trade Commission of Taiwan
