Qualcomm posts $1.52B bond to enforce German ban on some iPhones

Qualcomm on Thursday announced that it posted a security bond of 1.34 billion euros, about $1.52 billion, moving ahead with a German ban on the iPhone 7 and 8.

The bond was a requirement from a Munich court, which late last month ruled that the iPhones infringed on Qualcomm patents related to power saving, according to Reuters. Apple was asked to stop sales and imports of affected hardware and recall units from third-party vendors. For the time being, the iPhone XS, XS Max, and XR remain available in Germany.

With the bond posted, the ban can officially take effect. Apple is already in the process of appealing the December ruling.

Qualcomm has specifically accused Apple supplier Qorvo of violating U.S. Patent No. 8,698,558 for a "Low-voltage power-efficient envelope tracker."

Apple is dealing with a similar legal matter in China, where a Chinese court issued a preliminary injunction against older iPhones for infringing on two software patents. In response to the sales ban, Apple announced plans to issue a software update it believed would address the "minor functionality of the two patents at issue in the case," later delivering it in the form of iOS 12.1.2. Qualcomm has disputed the validity of this fix.

On the German matter, Apple earlier sent out a statement calling Qualcomm's actions "a desperate attempt to distract from the real issues between our companies," claiming Qualcomm charges "exorbitant fees based on work they didn't do." It also called attention to government probes into Qualcomm's business practices, which have previously required chip buyers to accept licensing deals.

The two corporations have been fighting since at least January 2017, when Apple filed a $1 billion lawsuit claiming Qualcomm was withholding royalty rebates in retaliation for cooperating with antitrust investigators. Legal battles have since blossomed, and indeed Qualcomm has been pursuing a U.S. iPhone ban.

4 Comments

wood1208 2930 comments · 10 Years

About 5 years ago

Irrespective of Qualcomm's questionable IP licensing practices, Apple must win this case. Qualcomm is so desperate that it's like injured Tiger fighting the last battle for proving in Court it's wrongful practices but also it's survival.

sflocal 6133 comments · 16 Years

About 5 years ago

wood1208 said:

Irrespective of Qualcomm's questionable IP licensing practices, Apple must win this case. Qualcomm is so desperate that it's like injured Tiger fighting the last battle for proving in Court it's wrongful practices but also it's survival.

The company (Qorvo) that Apple partnered with refused to reveal its battery-tech in the presence of QC engineers. Where QC lost this lawsuit in other countries as the court allowed the evidence to be shown without QC involved, they were somehow able to get away with essentially "penalizing" Qorvo in Germany.

QC is doing some strange legal maneuvering. Any sane person will realize that a company has a right to protect it's secret IP and not be forced to hand it over to a competitor like QC. QC is sketchy enough that they will certainly use that info to implement it in their own products.

anantksundaram 20390 comments · 18 Years

About 5 years ago

I think the Qualcomm stuff is pure noise. Sure, it adds to the negative sentiment a little bit at the margin, but it's mostly pointless in terms of actual cash flows or risk to Apple.

Apple should stay the course on this one. (Although, I do wonder about the quality of Apple's legal team).

georgie01 437 comments · 8 Years

About 5 years ago

anantksundaram said:

(Although, I do wonder about the quality of Apple's legal team).

Today’s cultural climate should make it painfully obvious that people are less and less interested in truth and more and more interested in their feelings. People instinctively come up with ways to make their agenda seem reasonable, irrespective of what is actually true. Most people in our societies nowadays can’t even tell the difference between how they feel and what is true—if fact simply telling someone what they feel may not be true is considered a moral offence.

So if Apple isn’t having legal success where they need to, it is probably just a failure to be dishonest and manipulative of truth. The court setting may be better than Facebook postings, but it often still suffers the same lack of interest in truth and process.