AFP, San Francisco :
Apple on Friday sued Qualcomm, accusing the California chipmaker of abusing its market power to demand unfair royalties, echoing charges filed days earlier by US antitrust regulators.
Apple said in the court filing that it has been overcharged “billions of dollars” by its chipmaking partner’s “illegal scheme.”
Apple also claimed Qualcomm owes it a billion dollars but is refusing to pay in retaliation for the iPhone maker’s cooperating with South Korean antitrust regulators looking into the chipmaker’s actions in that country.
“For many years Qualcomm has unfairly insisted on charging royalties for technologies they have nothing to do with,” Apple said in an email statement.
“To protect this business scheme Qualcomm has taken increasingly radical steps, most recently withholding nearly $1 billion in payments from Apple as retaliation for responding truthfully to law enforcement agencies investigating them.”
The suit charges Qualcomm of building a business model on using its rights to older, legacy technology considered telecommunication industry standards to raise royalties when Apple innovates with features such as TouchID fingerprint recognition or digital wallets in mobile devices.
Apple on Friday sued Qualcomm, accusing the California chipmaker of abusing its market power to demand unfair royalties, echoing charges filed days earlier by US antitrust regulators.
Apple said in the court filing that it has been overcharged “billions of dollars” by its chipmaking partner’s “illegal scheme.”
Apple also claimed Qualcomm owes it a billion dollars but is refusing to pay in retaliation for the iPhone maker’s cooperating with South Korean antitrust regulators looking into the chipmaker’s actions in that country.
“For many years Qualcomm has unfairly insisted on charging royalties for technologies they have nothing to do with,” Apple said in an email statement.
“To protect this business scheme Qualcomm has taken increasingly radical steps, most recently withholding nearly $1 billion in payments from Apple as retaliation for responding truthfully to law enforcement agencies investigating them.”
The suit charges Qualcomm of building a business model on using its rights to older, legacy technology considered telecommunication industry standards to raise royalties when Apple innovates with features such as TouchID fingerprint recognition or digital wallets in mobile devices.
