In January, Apple sued chipmaker Qualcomm for nearly $1 billion on the grounds that the company had been charging irrelevant royalties for technologies. The two companies have been tied in legal quarrels for quite some time now. The heat just got hotter when Qualcomm sued Apple over intellectual property violations and demanded that sale and imports of iPhones and iPads be banned in the U.S.
Qualcomm claims that Apple infringed on six patents including those of a technology that improves the battery life and performance efficiency of iPhones. The other patents are related to battery optimization, network management, and system performance, which all work together to increase efficiency of information being sent and received to and from the wireless network.
“Apple continues to use Qualcomm’s technology while refusing to pay for it,” Don Rosenberg, executive vice president and general counsel of Qualcomm, said in a statement.
Qualcomm wants the U.S. International Trade Commission to investigate which phones use cellular processors from Qualcomm’s competitors, and halt sales of iPhones that violate the patents. Qualcomm said it has filed complaints in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California and with the U.S. ITC.
“We believe deeply in the value of intellectual property but we shouldn’t have to pay them for technology breakthroughs they have nothing to do with. We’ve always been willing to pay a fair rate for standard technology used in our products and since they’ve refused to negotiate reasonable terms we’re asking the courts for help,” Apple said.
Megha Shah for TechFunnel.com
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.