Computer giant Apple followed up Wednesday on last week’s lawsuit against San Diego-based Qualcomm by filing a pair of complaints in China.
Qualcomm, which supplies processors for mobile devices, said one of the complaints alleges a violation of China’s anti-monopoly law, and the other requests a determination of the terms of a patent license between Qualcomm and Apple, for Qualcomm’s cellular standard essentials patents.
The complaints, announced by the Intellectual Property Court in Beijing, seek more than $145 million in compensation. They were filed hours before Qualcomm is to release its latest earnings report.
“These filings by Apple’s Chinese subsidiary are just part of Apple’s efforts to find ways to pay less for Qualcomm’s technology,” said Don Rosenberg, Qualcomm’s executive vice president and general counsel. “Apple was offered terms consistent with terms accepted by more than one hundred other Chinese companies and refused to even consider them.”
He said the company is “prepared to defend its business model anywhere in the world. We are proud of our history of contributing our inventions to the development and success of the mobile communications ecosystem.”
In the U.S. lawsuit filed Friday, Apple accused Qualcomm of withholding $1 billion in a dispute over royalties.
The court action came three days after the Federal Trade Commission accused Qualcomm of business practices that were allegedly designed to gain a monopoly.
The FTC contended that Qualcomm signed Apple to an exclusivity deal from 2011 to last year that lowered royalty payments, but prevented Apple from acquiring processors from Qualcomm’s competitors unless they pay a penalty.
—City News Service
