NEWS

What happened to Qualcomm and Apple?

Release time:

2017-10-18 16:38

According to the information released by the Beijing Intellectual Property Court on the 12th, the court recently accepted the case of Apple v. Qualcomm confirming that it does not infringe patent rights. Just two weeks ago, on September 29, Qualcomm said it had sued Apple in the Beijing Intellectual Property Court, demanding that it be banned from manufacturing and selling Apple's iPhone in China.

As we all know, Chinese mainland is currently the largest production base of Apple's iPhone, and iPhone products contribute up to 2/3 billion of Apple's revenue. It is not difficult to see that Qualcomm is really going to give Apple a "hard hand.

In fact, the patent dispute between Qualcomm and Apple only started at the beginning of this year. In January, Apple sued Qualcomm in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California and claimed $1 billion. Then on April 10, Qualcomm countersued Apple in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California, accusing Apple of violating its agreement with Qualcomm and interfering with the long-term agreement between Apple's foundries and Qualcomm. Subsequently, on May 18, Qualcomm sued Foxconn, Heshuo, Wistron and Compal four Apple suppliers in the Southern District Court of California, accusing them of violating the agreement with Qualcomm and refusing to pay Qualcomm patent fees. In June, Apple sued Qualcomm's smartphone chip licensing agreement in a U.S. federal court, arguing that Qualcomm's patent licensing was double-charged. In July, Qualcomm sued Apple for infringing six of its own patents and asked the U.S. International Trade Commission to ban the sale of iPhones that infringe Qualcomm's patents.

This time, Qualcomm and Apple's battlefield shifted to China. This time Qualcomm accused Apple of infringing Qualcomm's three Chinese non-standard essential patents in China and demanded that Apple be banned from manufacturing and selling related iPhone products in China.

Qualcomm believes that Apple has continued to use the technology invented by Qualcomm, but refuses to pay for it. Apple's response is that Apple has always been willing to pay a fair and reasonable fee for patents, but Qualcomm charges are unreasonable.

Qualcomm chose to throw out the killer mace when iPhone8 and iPhone X went on sale in China, which was regarded as hitting Apple's life. In all fairness, Qualcomm's lawsuit against Apple is reasonable to a certain extent, because patents are protected by law, and users should pay the corresponding royalties. A win-win situation can only be achieved when patent contributions are balanced with commercial returns.

News source:http://tech.sina.com.cn/roll/2017-10-16/doc-ifymuukv2168097.shtml

This news was re-edited and reorganized by the Huaxun team and added analytical comments.