Earlier this year the FTC filed a lawsuit against Qualcomm over alleged antitrust violations. Following that, Apple launched a lawsuit of their own in which they alleged that Qualcomm had withheld payments to them as a form of “punishment” amongst other things. Unsurprisingly Qualcomm did not take these allegations lying down.The company has since filed their own countersuit against Apple and now it seems that they are going after Apple’s manufacturing partners as well. According to a recent Qualcomm announcement, the company has revealed that they have since filed lawsuits against the likes of Foxconn, Compal, Wistron, and Pegatron, who for those unfamiliar are the contract manufacturers hired by Apple to help build the iPhone.
In a statement made by Don Rosenberg, executive vice president and general counsel of Qualcomm, “It is unfortunate that we must take this action against these long-time licensees to enforce our agreements, but we cannot allow these manufacturers and Apple to use our valuable intellectual property without paying the fair and reasonable royalties to which they have agreed.”
According to Forbes’ report, this lawsuit actually makes sense because Apple does not license directly from Qualcomm, but rather their manufacturing partners do and Apple is supposed to reimburse them for it. So far there has not been any comment from Apple or the companies mentioned in the latest lawsuit, but things are definitely turning ugly and pretty fast.
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