Apple takes fight with Qualcomm to China

Apple on Wednesday took its legal war with Qualcomm to China, filing lawsuits there accusing the chip-making giant of illegally wielding monopoly power.

Apple confirmed the suits and referred to comments it released when it filed an antitrust suit against Qualcomm in the United States last week. “For many years, Qualcomm has unfairly insisted on charging royalties for technologies they have nothing to do with,” California-based Apple said in the statement. “Qualcomm built its business on older, legacy, standards but reinforces its dominance through exclusionary tactics and excessive royalties.”

Qualcomm, also based in California, said it had not seen the legal complaints but that a press release from a Beijing court said one of the filings accused the company of violating China’s anti-monopoly law. The other asked for a determination regarding terms of a patent license agreement, the company said. “These filings by Apple’s Chinese subsidiary are just part of Apple’s efforts to find ways to pay less for Qualcomm’s technology,” Qualcomm general counsel Don Rosenberg said in a statement. Apple last week sued Qualcomm in US federal court, accusing the chipmaker of abusing its market power to demand unfair royalties, echoing recent charges by US antitrust regulators.

The suit accuses Qualcomm of building a business model based on its rights to technologies that are considered telecommunication industry standards and then ramping up royalties when Apple innovated its mobile devices with features such as TouchID fingerprint recognition or digital wallets.