Qualcomm business model illegal, claims Apple
- Author:Ella Cai
- Release on:2017-06-21
Qualcomm’s business model is illegal, claims Apple in its legal scrap with Qualcomm in the federal court of the Southern District of California.
Apple is asserting that Qualcomm’s practice of charging both for its chips and for a technology licence to use the chips is illegal.
Apple cites a US Supreme Court case involving Lexmark where a judge held that Lexmark couldn’t sue a buyer of one of its printer cartridges for patent infringement because the very act of the sale ended Lexmark’s capacity to assert its patent rights.
If upheld in the Qualcomm case, this judgment would put an end to Qualcomm’s ‘double dipping’
practice of charging for a licence on top of a chip sale.
“This is precisely the kind of double-dipping, extra-reward system that the court’s decision ruled against,” argues Apple, “this one reward is either a license fee or the sale price, not both. The Lexmark decision makes it clear that Qualcomm’s separate sale and license business model is an illegal practice.”
Apple is asserting that Qualcomm’s practice of charging both for its chips and for a technology licence to use the chips is illegal.
Apple cites a US Supreme Court case involving Lexmark where a judge held that Lexmark couldn’t sue a buyer of one of its printer cartridges for patent infringement because the very act of the sale ended Lexmark’s capacity to assert its patent rights.
If upheld in the Qualcomm case, this judgment would put an end to Qualcomm’s ‘double dipping’
practice of charging for a licence on top of a chip sale.
“This is precisely the kind of double-dipping, extra-reward system that the court’s decision ruled against,” argues Apple, “this one reward is either a license fee or the sale price, not both. The Lexmark decision makes it clear that Qualcomm’s separate sale and license business model is an illegal practice.”
