Apple, Qualcomm at loggerheads over chips

APPLE broadened a legal attack on Qualcomm, arguing to a US federal court that licence agreements that secure the chip maker a cut of every iPhone manufactured were invalid.

If successful, Apple’s attack would undermine a core tenet of Qualcomm’s business model. “Apple is trying to distract from the fact that it has made misleading statements about the comparative performance of its products, and threatened Qualcomm not to disclose the truth,” Don Rosenberg, executive vice president and general counsel of Qualcomm, said.

Apple sued San Diego-based Qualcomm in January, saying the chip maker improperly withheld $1 billion (R13.02bn) in rebates.

On Tuesday Apple took aim at Qualcomm’s practice of requiring customers to sign patent licence agreements before purchasing chips, known in the industry as “no licence, no chips.” The licence allows Qualcomm to take a percentage of the overall selling price for the iPhone in exchange for supplying the modem chips.