It seems like Apple is not yet finished suing its iPhone modem supplier. Early today, there were reports of Apple filing a lawsuit against Qualcomm in China.
Before this, Apple had already sued the company in the US for $1 billion. The lawsuit filed in China was for the same case but with 1 billion Yuan ($140 million) sought in damages.
Qualcomm has responded to the new lawsuit through a press release. The company revealed that Apple claimed that they had violated China’s Anti-Monopoly Law.
The release unveiled Apple’s request for “determination of the terms of a patent license”, which referred to the cellular standard essentials patents of the two companies. Responding to this request, the lawyers of Qualcomm claimed that Apple was given deals consistent with others in the industry.
These filings by Apple’s Chinese subsidiary are just part of Apple’s efforts to find ways to pay less for Qualcomm’s technology.
Apple was offered terms consistent with terms accepted by more than one hundred other Chinese companies and refused to even consider them. These terms were consistent with our NDRC Rectification plan.
The lawsuit filed in China appears to be a highly similar case as the one Apple earlier filed in a federal court in California. The US lawsuit took place after there was an FTC complaint claiming Qualcomm had plans to monopolize the market.
Apple alleged that because of Qualcomm’s practices, they weren’t able to source key components anywhere else other than the company.
After news of the US lawsuit broke out, Apple claimed that Qualcomm “unfairly insisted on charging royalties for technologies they have nothing to do with.” Even though there were more companies that contributed to basic cellular standards, Apple believed that Qualcomm charged them at least five times more in payments. This analysis was compared with other cellular patent licensors the company had agreements with.
In its response, Qualcomm claimed that Apple had deliberately mischaracterized the terms they had a deal on. They believe Apple was “encouraging regulatory attacks” on their business with different industries throughout the world.
