The patent war between Apple and Qualcomm continues unabated. According to The Financial Times , the chipset manufacturer has filed a request to block Apple's sales in China, aiming to prevent the California-based company from obtaining the necessary authorization to sell its new iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR.
Has Apple plagiarized Qualcomm?
Qualcomm goes all out. After recently obtaining a ban on the sale of the iPhone 6S, iPhone 6S Plus, iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus, iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone X, the manufacturer is now going for the highest models in the Apple range. The reason is none other than the decision of the Fuzhou Intermediate People's Court to understand that Apple had infringed two patents belonging to Qualcomm related to application management and photo resizing.
This resolution made it possible to cancel the sale of the aforementioned models, so Qualcomm is once again tightening the nuts to achieve the total blocking of all models in the Apple catalog. But in Cupertino they were not going to stay with their arms crossed. They had an ace up their sleeve, since, according to them, iOS 12 does not infringe any of the patents, and since all those models run that version of the system, they have ignored the court order and have continued to sell phones with the latest version of the operating system. As if nothing happened.
A judgment without a court ruling
The problem with this situation is that, without a court ruling, for now it cannot be said that Apple has skipped any of Qualcomm's patents. On the other hand, the ban on sales, although it intensifies the situation even more, will allow both parties to sit down and reach a final agreement, something that for now does not seem to be going to happen, since from the beginning they have been passing the ball from one to the other.
It all started when Apple accused Qualcomm of abusing its position in the processor market to raise royalty rates , something that both the US and South Korean governments have ultimately confirmed, declaring that Qualcomm behaved monopolistically by overcharging device manufacturers. So, Qualcomm shouldn't get too confident, as it has already lost several battles along the way.