The tech giant Apple Inc have taken Qualcomm Inc into lawsuit affairs worth $ 1 billion. The company has put the accusations on the American multinational semiconductor and telecommunication equipment company for taking help of unscrupulous marketing tactics to rise in the market to gain the monopoly on semiconductors used in mobile phones.
Qualcomm handles the major supply chain of both big manufacturers, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. and Apple for “modem” chips for connecting the phones to wireless networks.
In the total Qualcomm revenue of $23.5 billion, both the companies make 40 percent part of it. The lawsuit imposed in U.S. District Court, Apple has come up with the accusations that the company is putting unfair prices for the supplied chips and also not paying the long withheld $ 1 billion which the company owes to Apple.
The main concern of Apple revolves around that, the chip making company is charging billions on the name of patent royalties which have least to do with their technology.
Apple has promptly put a complaint forward that Qualcomm seized the payable amounts because of Korea Fair Trade Commission discussion of Apple.
Apple mentioned it in words like, “If that were not enough, Qualcomm then attempted to extort Apple into changing its responses and providing false information to the KFTC in exchange for Qualcomm’s release of those payments to Apple. Apple refused”.
To all these accusations, Don Rosenberg from Qualcomm General Counsel is behaving indifferent and calling the claims as, “baseless”.
Apple also highlighted the fact that to maintain the monopoly in the market, Qualcomm has set up the licensing barricades on the technology so that no other supplier can make and provide the chips to the companies.
Under a “no license, no chip: policy, the company requires Apple to pay additional licensing fee which is completely unworthy to ask for.
Adding to this, Qualcomm has also arranged the barriers so that the Apple devices which are equipped with Intel chipsets do not get sold much in the market.
