Apple Files a Countersuit Against Qualcomm, Claims Patent Infringement

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If you thought the spat between Qualcomm and Apple couldn’t get any worse, think again. On Wednesday, Apple filed a countersuit against Qualcomm, alleging that the chipmaker is infringing on its intellectual property.

Here’s a quick refresher: Earlier this year, Qualcomm filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Apple in U.S. District Court and an intellectual property complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission, hoping to convince both bodies to ban the U.S. sale and import of iPhones with Intel chips. It claimed (and continues to claim) that the chips at issue use technologies it’s patented, which Apple denied (and continues to deny)

Apple’s now filed a countersuit in U.S. District Court in San Diego against Qualcomm for violating its intellectual property — specifically, eight patents governing battery-saving technologies and sleep and wake functions. It targets Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 800 and Snapdragon 820 chipsets, and says that Apple’s been “seeking [royalties] years before Qualcomm [filed suit].”

The legal battle between Apple and Qualcomm goes back as far as January of this year, when Apple sued Qualcomm for almost $1 billion over “unfair patent licensing practices.” The San Diego, California-based company retaliated by filing suit against Foxconn, one of Apple’s assembly and manufacturing partners, all the while settling royalty disputes with other companies in the industry.

But Apple isn’t Qualcomm’s only legal foe. It’s facing a lawsuit from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission over many of the same practices that Apple outlined in its complaints.

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Source: Reuters

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