Qualcomm Seeks To Ban Imports And Sales of Apple iPhones in New Lawsuit (cnbc.com)

Chipmaker Qualcomm is asking U.S. trade regulators to ban iPhone imports, according to a new lawsuit. From a report: Apple has allegedly infringed on six of Qualcomm's patents, including technology that improves iPhone battery life, according to Qualcomm. Now Qualcomm wants Apple to pay damages. "Apple continues to use Qualcomm's technology while refusing to pay for it," Don Rosenberg, executive vice president and general counsel of Qualcomm, said in a statement. Qualcomm ultimately wants regulators to investigate which phones use cellular processors from Qualcomm's competitors, and halt sales of iPhones that violate the patents. Qualcomm said it has filed complaints in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California and with the United States International Trade Commission. It's not immediately clear how many iPhones that would affect.

Comments

Re:SSDD

[rsmith-mac]

If so, why does the secondary user of the chip (Apple) also have to pay licensing fees?

Because Qualcomm says so.

No, seriously. Qualcomm's position is that every step in the production chain that includes their IP/hardware needs to be individually licensed. Because company X makes a board that includes Qualcomm's IP, and then sells that board to company Y who makes a phone from it and sells said phone, then both X and Y need to be licensed.

It's a scenario that has been called into question many times before over the years. However no case has made it to trial to decide it and set any kind of precedent. In the meantime, because both X and Y technically have products that utilize Qualcomm's IP, both face the risk of an infringement suit if they don't pay royalties.

Probably the closest we came to that was NVIDIA's suit against Samsung and Qualcomm, which along with establishing IP infringement was attempting to sort out who is responsible for said infringement (is it the company who fabs the chips, or the company who designs the IP?). However since that case imploded spectacularly, the question was never answered.

Re:How many? Perhaps none.

[LynnwoodRooster]

Uh, no. I don't know how many chip licenses you've negotiated, I've done more than my fair share. You buy the chips - but the firmware, the stuff that runs inside them - is typically an additional license that must be negotiated and paid for. That's true with Qualcomm, CSR (before Qualcomm bought them), Atmel, Cirrus, Analog Devices, TI, ST and many others... You buy the chip, but you still have to pay for licenses for any embedded firmware you choose to use.