photo from: jrj.com

On March 16, Qualcomm announced that the United States District Court for the Southern District of California jury found that Apple infringed upon Qualcomm's three patents and would have to pay USD 31 million in compensation. These three patent infringement consist of technologies invented by Qualcomm in San Diego.

In July 2017, Qualcomm sued Apple for using its technology without permission in certain versions of its iPhone. The lawsuit was filed in the Federal District Court for Southern District of California.

“Technology invented by Qualcomm and other companies helped Apple enter the market and achieve rapid success. In this case, the three patents found to be infringed upon just represent a tiny little part of Qualcomm’s tens of thousands of patent portfolios. We are glad to see that courts around the world are rejecting Apple's refusal to pay for the use of our intellectual property.” Don Rosenberg, executive vice president and general counsel of Qualcomm, declared.

In the past six months, Chinese and German patent courts have ruled that Apple infringed upon Qualcomm's non-standard essential patents, thus issuing a prohibition on devices that adopted the technologies concerned.

On February 14, Apple told The Beijing News that sales of iPhone 7 and 8 were restored in Germany. Apple issued a statement proclaiming that “Qualcomm is trying to make us succumb to their irrational claims by imposing a ban on Apple products. In many cases, they use patents purchased from other companies or patents that are completely irrelevant with their cellular technology, with an intention to attack Apple and other market players. In order to ensure that German users can regain access to iPhone models, we’ve got no choice but stop using Intel chips in Germany and produce phones with Qualcomm chips. By all possible means, Qualcomm is trying to eliminate competition, cause harm to consumers and stifle industrial innovation. We remain committed to innovation and will continue to fight for the right things.”

Last Friday, the Japan Fair Trade Commission also lifted the previous ban, ruling that the Qualcomm Licensing Program did not violate the Japanese anti-monopoly law.

March 16,2019

Source: The Beijing News