Apple sues Qualcomm over unfair licensing terms2017-01-23 01:24 by DanielaTags: Apple, Qualcomm
Apple Inc has filed a $1 billion lawsuit against chip supplier Qualcomm Inc, for "royalties that they had nothing to do with." The suit, filed Friday in federal district court in the Southern District of California, claims that Qualcomm leveraged its monopoly position as a manufacturer of baseband chips, a critical component used in cellphones, to seek "onerous, unreasonable and costly" terms for patents, and that Qualcomm blocked Apple's ability to choose another supplier for chipsets. This happened just three days after the U.S. FTC filed an antitrust suit against Qualcomm that (among other things) alleged the company had a 5-year modem exclusivity deal with Apple that featured patent royalty rebates. "The more Apple innovates with unique features such as TouchID, advanced displays, and cameras, to name just a few, the more money Qualcomm collects for no reason and the more expensive it becomes for Apple to fund these innovations," Apple said in a statement. "Qualcomm built its business on older, legacy, standards but reinforces its dominance through exclusionary tactics and excessive royalties. Despite being just one of over a dozen companies who contributed to basic cellular standards, Qualcomm insists on charging Apple at least five times more in payments than all the other cellular patent licensors we have agreements with combined." Read more -here-
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