Qualcomm Sues Apple For Contract Breach (reuters.com)

Qualcomm has sued Apple, again, this time alleging that it violated a software license contract to benefit rival chipmaker Intel for making broadband modems, the latest salvo in a longstanding dispute between the two companies. From a report: Qualcomm alleged in a lawsuit filed in the California state court in San Diego on Wednesday that Apple used its commercial leverage to demand unprecedented access to the chipmaker's highly confidential software, including source code. Apple began to use Intel's broadband modem chips in the iPhone 7, which it launched last year.

Comments

Qualcomm Always Expensive and Proprietary

[thebes]

Qualcomm has always been perceived as (and actually been) expensive and proprietary in the telecom world, so this should be no surprise when someone else comes to the market for a better price. Apple can probably easily pay to defend this suit purely based on the financial savings of switching to Intel.

Re:Qualcomm Always Expensive and Proprietary

[thebes]

One acronym: CDMA
Another acronym: UMB

Qualcomm got where they got today in part due to their CDMA modem patent revenue. UMB was Qualcomm's proprietary replacement for CDMA that was intended to compete with LTE.

Luckily, the general industry smartened up and went with a partnership standard like 3GPP2. As CDMA support dwindles around the world, Qualcomm is just taking larger and larger hits to their bottom line, relative to what they were before.

Re:Qualcomm Always Expensive and Proprietary

[thebes]

Luckily, the general industry smartened up and went with a partnership standard like 3GPP2.

I need to correct myself.

That should read 3GPP not 3GPP2.

Qualcomm's panicking.

[SeaFox]

The rumors of Apple developing their own radio chips has them freaking out. Their shareholders will be out for blood if they lose Apple's business.

Re:Qualcomm's panicking.

[v1]

What I don't understand is how it can possibly benefit you in the long-run to sue the customer you want to keep the business of? Sort of a "biting the hand that feeds you" isn't it?

Qualcomm needs to go away

[WCMI92]

They don't innovate, they have set themselves up as a "tollbooth" on the industry.

Don't innovate?

[haunebu]

They literally invented CDMA, the foundational technology for 3G, and developed an outsized portion of both LTE and the forthcoming 5G network standards & protocols. If you don't like them for whatever reason, that's fine. But an entire industry has been created thanks to their research & development efforts. To say they don't innovate would be asinine.

Re:Don't innovate?

[thebes]

-1 troll

CDMA did not merge with TDMA, GSM, etc. CDMA died a rightful death due to its patent and licensing encumbrance.

Re:Don't innovate?

[sl3xd]

They literally invented CDMA, the foundational technology for 3G,

History appears to disagree. CDMA was invented by the Soviets, with research going as far back as 1935.

Qualcomm developed the first Cellular network that used CDMA under contract to AirTouch, (which eventually merged to Verizon).

That said: LTE uses OFDMA (downlink) and SC-FDMA (uplink). It's an entirely different beast than CDMA.

3G does have some relevance as a backwards-compatibility option, but its relevance is rapidly diminishing, with LTE covering the vast majority of the lower 48 states.