The ongoing legal war between Qualcomm and Apple has taken a turn for the worse. Executives from the chipmaking company filed official reply documents to defend it against the allegations brought forward by Apple and other companies. For the uninitiated, many firms in the United States have accused Qualcomm of resorting to anti-competitive measures and attempting to manipulate competition.
Some companies – who are members of the Computer & Communications Industry Association - came forward last week to support the iPhone maker. Companies such as Samsung, Facebook, Intel, and Google have expressed their concerns regarding the chipmaker’s ban request on iPhone imports in the United States.
The legal tussle
The fight started earlier in 2017 when Apple stopped paying for Qualcomm’s licensing fee and withheld more than $1 billion in payments. The rift started when the former discovered that the latter was allegedly charging higher prices for some of its patents, which the Cupertino-based firm believed gave it added growth in terms of money for the tech it had no contribution toward. Following Apple’s decision to stop the payment of the licensing fees, the chipmaking company filed for the ban on the imports, sales, and showcasing of iPhones in the United States. However, this move did not go down well with many tech companies who accused the chipmaker of attempting to manipulate the SoC space.
Qualcomm submits official documents to the ITC
In recently submitted documents, the chip maker addresses the comments that were stated last week by some of the companies in the Association. Qualcomm maintains that the firms in the Association teamed up to launch a “coordinated effort aimed at misdirecting” the Itc from its impartial decision.
Qualcomm also maintained that the call for iPhone ban in the United States would not affect the consumers negatively and neither would it affect Intel’s capability to retail SoC’s in the stateside. Case in point, the chip maker asserted that the legal battle did not concern Intel at all and was being fought to protect its own patented technology from being infringed by competitors.
Just last week, the CEO of the chip manufacturing company stated that he was expecting the legal dispute to get an out-of-the court settlement, which made many believe that the legal tussle was finally coming to an end. However, going by Qualcomm’s latest filings, it appears that the matter is not going to settle amicably anytime soon.
