The legal battle between Apple and Qualcomm entered a new level today, those from Cupertino being accused of blackmail because they asked their partners not to pay licenses to those from Qualcomm. We have known since a few weeks ago that Qualcomm did not receive several hundred million dollars from Apple's partners based on the licensing contracts concluded with them.
Because it cannot come to an agreement with these Apple partners, Qualcomm is now asking the court to compel them to pay it the money it should receive. On the other hand, those from Apple do not deny the fact that they should pay licenses for the technologies used in the products, but they say that they do not want to pay a percentage of the price of the products.
Apple basically wants to pay a fixed price for licensing and not a percentage of the selling price of an iPhone, but those from Qualcomm have a different opinion. The agreements between the two companies have always been based on this idea of paying a percentage of the selling price of the iPhone, but Apple wants to keep more money from the sale of each product.
Considering the way the Apple company acted, it is hard to believe that it could lose the lawsuit, otherwise it would not have asked its partners not to pay the licensing fees. The situation is very complicated, especially since Apple still buys Qualcomm products, so it remains to be seen what will happen in the future with this process.
"Apple has interfered with Qualcomm's long-standing contracts with the Contract Manufacturers, instructing them to withhold more than [redacted] in royalties (to date) owed under the terms of their license agreements. But Apple has not stopped there. Instead, Apple has made it clear that it will continue to embargo all Qualcomm royalties, for all Apple products, for the indefinite future. By withholding billions of dollars in royalties so long as Qualcomm defends itself against Apple's claims, Apple is hoping to make litigation unbearable for Qualcomm and, thereby, to extract through a forced settlement what it knows it cannot obtain through judicial process—a below-market direct license. Apple's tactics are egregious."
