Last week Apple filed a $1 billion lawsuit against Qualcomm, alleging that Qualcomm had abused its position in the market to “extort” the company. However it seems that’s not the end of it because according to a report from Reuters, Apple has since filed a second lawsuit against Qualcomm, except that this time the lawsuit is in China.
This was confirmed by Beijing’s Intellectual Property court and according to the latest lawsuit, it alleges that Qualcomm had failed to live up to its promises to license “standard essential patents” broadly and inexpensively. Qualcomm claims to have not yet seen the full complaint, but Don Rosenberg, executive vice president and general counsel of Qualcomm has already defended the company’s position.
According to Rosenberg’s statement, “These filings by Apple’s Chinese subsidiary are just part of Apple’s efforts to find ways to pay less for Qualcomm’s technology. Apple was offered terms consistent with terms accepted by more than one hundred other Chinese companies and refused to even consider them.”
Qualcomm is in some serious legal trouble at the moment because not only are they facing two lawsuits from Apple, but they are also facing one from the US FTC, and let’s not forget that in the past the company was also hit with very, very hefty fines from both Korean and Chinese antitrust regulators. Last we heard, Qualcomm was apparently planning a countersuit against Apple.