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Around the world, Qualcomm is the chief chipset supplier for many of the smartphone manufacturers. Apple has been using the LTE Chips from Qualcomm for most of its recent iPhones. For a bit of a variation in the supply chain, Apple bought LTE Chipsets from both Intel and Qualcomm for its iPhone 7.
But recently, the royalties to the chip making company came to a halt as Apple decided not to pay stating the current rates are unfair. This meant hundreds of millions of dollars per quarter for Qualcomm at stake. Apple stands by the point that the chip making company is already paying more royalties than it should. Apple states that Qualcomm if supposedly forcing the company to license a lot of patents and take a cut on each of the iPhone sales. This has made both the companies to file lawsuits against each other over the patent licensing deals.
For saving its patent business model, Qualcomm is thinking about asking the International Trade Commission to ban imports of Apple’s iPhones in the U.S. The chip making company hopes that the ITC that the issue can get resolved better through this court and win the lawsuit against Apple. This might be a bit of an issue for Apple as with all products produced in China, the company has to import all of its devices into U.S. in order to sell in its home country.
Qualcomm even with this new proposal is not expecting a complete ban on the Apple’s devices; the company is just buying some time to leverage its arguments using different approaches.
Via: Tech Crunch
