US judge recommends partial veto on iPhone imports in the United States

| March 26, 2019 – 17:22

Both US technology companies have been involved in a long battle over patents and copyrights in courts and administrative bodies around the world.

A US Commercial Court judge ruled on Tuesday that Apple had violated a patent from chip maker Qualcomm and had recommended a partial ban on iPhone imports into the country.

"I will recommend that a limited exclusion order be imposed (…) on Apple," said Judge MaryJoan McNamara in a resolution of the International Trade Commission, based in Washington.

After this announcement, Wall Street's Qualcomm shares gained 2.84% over 19.20 GMT, while Apple's shares fell 1.11%.

The smartphone maker won the court victory 11 days ago, when a California federal court ordered Apple to pay $ 31 million for patent infringement on its iPhone 7 chips , 8 and X.

In this case, the patents in question are the cellular starter system, which allows devices to quickly connect to the Internet after activation, and the technology that allows smart phone applications to process data more efficiently.

In late 2018, Qualcomm managed to get a German court to ban the sale of certain iPhones under certain conditions, following a similar decision in China shortly before.

Qualcomm has been supplying Apple's Modem chips for a long time, a piece to connect the smartphone to telecommunication networks.

But Apple has stopped buying Qualcomm chips to replace them with the giant Intel integrated circuit.