Qualcomm has told a federal court in San Diego that Apple is $7 billion behind in its royalty patents to the firm for technology which uses Qualcomm licenses.
Apple, which has been locked in a battle with Qualcomm for close to two years, has disputed the amount that it owes. It also claims that Qualcomm is trying to force it to pay for certain patents twice over: once for the use of Qualcomm’s chips in iPhones and once for patent royalties.
Qualcomm says that what it is doing is perfectly legal, and that Apple is criticizing a business model that it has happily agreed to for years.
Apple vs. Qualcomm
Apple first sued Qualcomm back in January 2017, alleging it owed $1 billion in rebates. Apple then decided to withhold royalty payments for the Qualcomm modems it was using. Qualcomm followed with a series of lawsuits of its own. The battle has raged on since then, and by now has more twists than a pretzel.
Most recently, Qualcomm alleged that Apple stole its chip technology and passed it on to Intel. Specifically, it claims that Apple took “vast swaths” of confidential information and trade secrets, which it then used to improve the performance of chips made by one of Qualcomm’s biggest rivals.
It seems that this case isn’t going to be resolved any time soon!
Source: Reuters
