Qualcomm Countersuits Apple over Patent Royalties, Seeks Damages



At the start of this year, the legal battle between Qualcomm and Apple culminated with the Cupertino-based company filing a total of three lawsuits against the chipset maker. Apple sought unpaid royalties from Qualcomm and $145 million in damages resulted after Qualcomm allegedly abused its leading position on the market.  

In the third suit, Apple claimed that Qualcomm failed to keep its promise and license essential patents at a reasonable price. Now, Qualcomm has prepared a response to Apple’s allegations and added counterclaims to the lawsuit.

Qualcomm denies a total of 389 allegations made by Apple and prepared 35 specific defenses against the Cupertino-based company.

“Qualcomm’s filing details the value of the technologies Qualcomm has invented, contributed and shared with the industry through its licensing program, as well as Apple’s failure to engage in good faith negotiations for a license to Qualcomm’s 3G and 4G standard essential patents on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms,” Qualcomm stated.

The chipmaker believes that Apple allegedly breached agreements and mischaracterized agreements and negotiations with Qualcomm, interfered with long-standing agreements with Qualcomm licensees that manufacture iPhones and iPads, and misrepresented facts and made false statements in order to encourage regulatory attacks against Qualcomm in various countries around the world.

Apple allegedly throttled performance metrics

In addition, Apple allegedly didn’t use the full performance of Qualcomm’s chips in iPhone 7 units and even threatened Qualcomm to prevent it from “making any public comparisons about the superior performance of the Qualcomm-powered iPhones.”

Last year, Apple was said to have throttled Qualcomm LTE chips to perform similarly to Intel modems that were incorporated in iPhone 7 models produced for AT&T and T-Mobile. Later, a new report claimed that Apple intentionally limited Qualcomm modems in Verizon and Sprint units in order to achieve the same performance as other iPhone 7 models. Reportedly, Apple prevented Qualcomm from revealing performance metrics compared to Intel modems.

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Qualcomm is seeking financial damages from Apple, but the chipmaker didn’t reveal the amount. “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,” Qualcomm said.

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