Matti Robinson
3 Dec 2017 10:27
The patent drama between Qualcomm and Apple is ever-changing it seems. To start the year Apple sued Qualcomm for $1 million for abusing their patents. Then Qualcomm responded during the summer by taking Apple to court for patent infringement themselves.
A few months later, just a few days ago in fact, Apple filed more lawsuits claiming Qualcomm is using their power management patents without consent. And that gets us to today when Qualcomm has filed their latest claims.
Surprisingly Qualcomm is blaming Apple for pretty much exactly what they were sued for. According to Qualcomm, Apple has been using their camera autofocus and power management patents in their new iPhone models.
The three new claims bring the total number of Qualcomm patent complaints to 16, ZDNet reports. In addition to this, Qualcomm is challenging Apple's patent usage at the International Trade Commission (ITC).
Both companies now claim that the other is abusing the other's power management, and it remains to be seen who's in the right. According to recent rumors, Apple, however, has been lately working towards developing their own power management chips in the future. Currently they are developed by Dialog Semicoductor.
According to Qualcomm's claim Apple is "the quintessential example of a company engaging in patent hold-out, and has repeatedly pursued a patent hold-out strategy using its enormous financial resources to harm innovators of technologies it uses." Obviously Apple, as shown by counter measures taken by the company, doesn't agree with any of that.
We'll just wait and see who will be on the top as the issue gets resolved, although it might be a long road ahead of us. However, Qualcomm still believes that the dispute could be resolved outside the courts.