Apple documents reveal multi-year plot to pressure and hurt Qualcomm



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Apple has filed a lawsuit in the amount of one billion dollars against Qualcomm in early 2017, but recently published documents suggest that he has spent years discrediting his partner and " to create evidence "to hurt him in court," said Qualcomm's lawyers at a San Diego court. "They were conspiring for two years," said Qualcomm's attorney, Evan Chesler, about Apple's strategy to undermine Qualcomm's patent licensing program. "Everything was planned in advance. Every bit of it."

Journalists are waiting to review Apple's internal documents since the end of the trial that ended abruptly on April 16. The highlights available in Chesler's slides (via Cnet) do not paint a magnificent picture. In September 2014, Apple internally discussed "future scenarios" to deal with Qualcomm, including plans to "bring about a patent battle" with its partner "after the end of 2016," and to work with Intel in the # 39 interval to "apply commercial pressure to Qualcomm. "In summary, the goal was to" hurt Qualcomm financially ", despite the fact that Apple relied heavily on the company's technologies for its iPhones and cellular iPads.

According to a more serious allegation, Chesler's slides suggest that Apple has begun a plan to devalue Qualcomm's patents while "creating evidence" to be used in the eventual prosecution. The company allegedly conceded atypically inexpensive licenses from other suppliers in order to compare them with Qualcomm's portfolio, which it would then present as comparable in licensing disputes, although it acknowledged internally that the cheap patents were low.

In contrast, the company internally considered Qualcomm's portfolio as "the strongest" in the industry and was simply seeking to reduce payments to its modem provider – even though Qualcomm's royalties remained virtually unchanged from sales growth. iPhone. Apple apparently aggravated the situation by contractually asking Qualcomm to continue supplying components, even if Apple's subcontractors stopped paying license fees, before asking its manufacturers to cut off payments, reducing Qualcomm revenues.

While Qualcomm and Apple have officially settled their legal disputes on April 16, and Apple plans to use Qualcomm components in its first iPhone 5G next year, these documents suggest that Qualcomm should not sleep with eyes closed in a near future. Although Apple's main 5G partner, Intel, has abandoned the 5G modem supply chain for smartphones, there is no doubt that Apple is working on its own modem at this stage, and this is only a matter of time – maybe six years or less – before it's ready. make the change. It remains to be seen whether these years go by without incident or whether they generate more legal dramas.

We asked Apple to comment on the allegations and we will update this article if we hear something in return.

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