Last week on October 26th, Qualcomm told a San Diego federal court that Apple was $7 billion behind in device royalty payments.
Qualcomm is the world’s largest mobile phone chip supplier and has supplied chips to Apple for years along with Intel.
The two companies have been in a legal battle since April now and when it started it was expected that Apple was withholding $1 billion in royalty payments, but it looks like it is much more now with Qualcomm claiming that Apple is $7 billion behind in payments. Apple has said that this is not how much is owed.
This started with Apple accusing Qualcomm of unfair patent licensing and then Qualcomm accused Apple of patent infringement. Apple is claiming that Qualcomm is forcing them to pay for the same patents twice. Qualcomm has said that what it’s doing is completely legal.
All of the newest iPhones only use Intel’s chips, which is not good for Qualcomm since now only the older iPhones have some chips made by Qualcomm. Last month Qualcomm also said that Apple had stolen its source code and given it to Intel and said they had evidence to go along with it.
Both companies have said that they hope to do business again in the future even though it looks like this legal battle will go on for a while.
