Qualcomm Says Apple 'Breached' & 'Mischaracterized' Their Deals
Qualcomm has filed a 139-page answer to Apple’s lawsuit that was filed by the latter last January. The chipmaker company says Apple has released false statements and misrepresented the facts of their deal. At the start of the year, Apple filed the $1B lawsuit against the chipmaker’s practices in licensing that includes “extortion”.
According to Ars Technica, Qualcomm says Apple has interfered with their agreement for iPads and iPhones, like Foxconn. They said that Apple made it a point to limit the capabilities of iPhones with Qualcomm chips by intentionally not using its features to its full capacity. This is because Tim Cook’s firm preferred their consumers not to know that their chipsets are better than iPhones with Intel chips.
In addition, Qualcomm also said Apple didn’t want any disclosure about the performance of Intel's and Qualcomm's chipset. They said it was unacceptable if Qualcomm sponsored a comparison between the two so they will use all their marketing resources to ‘retaliate’ the chipmaker’s stand. But according to Apple, this was not true as there is no significant difference between the two chips.
The battle between the firms started this January when Apple filed a lawsuit in US court according to Market Watch. This was followed by a lawsuit in the Intellectual Property Court in Beijing. And just this Monday, Qualcomm, who is known to have a hard time in the regulators of China, US, and South Korea, has finally defended themselves and revealed their side of the story. According to Qualcomm, Apple didn’t just meddle with their royalty payments but also encouraged regulatory attacks against them in jurisdictions of different countries.
Today, Qualcomm is seeking damages from the tech giant for all the agreements that weren't followed. "We intend to vigorously defend our business model, and pursue our right to protect and receive fair value for our technological contributions to the industry," according to Don Rosenberg, Qualcomm’s general counsel.