Qualcomm

As Apple’s legal battle with Qualcomm continues to drag on, the United States International Trade Commission recommended yesterday that a trade judge find Apple guilty of infringing upon at least one of Qualcomm’s patents.

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The long-running patent dispute between Apple and wireless chip supplier Qualcomm didn’t look likely to end anytime soon, with more than 50 separate proceedings filed across 16 jurisdictions in six different countries. Apple accuses Qualcomm of unfair terms for the use of its chips and patent licenses, while Qualcomm accuses Apple of infringing those patents.

But a Bloomberg Intelligence analyst thinks key hearings in three countries could lead to a speedier than expected settlement …

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Qualcomm has announced three concessions that it hopes will help resolve its long-running legal battle with Apple over the fees it charges for use of its wireless chips and patented technology.

First, it is making it easier for smartphone makers to choose a lower-cost licence, for which it charges 3.25% of the cost of the device, rather than the 5% Apple and others have so far been paying …

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As its relationship with Qualcomm continues to strain, Apple is looking to move away from the chipmaker entirely as an iPhone supplier. A new report from Fast Company today, however, says Apple won’t be able to ditch Qualcomm entirely this year…

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Update: In a statement to 9to5Mac, a Qualcomm spokesperson said the following:

As part of the cost reduction plan announced in January, Qualcomm is conducting a reduction of our full-time and temporary workforce.

A workforce reduction, such as this one, affects not only those employees who are part of the reduction, but their families, co-workers and the community. We recognize this and have offered affected employees supportive severance packages to reduce the impact of this transition on them.

We first evaluated non-headcount expense reductions, but we concluded that a workforce reduction is needed to support long-term growth and success, which will ultimately benefit all our stakeholders.

Amid its ongoing legal battle with Apple, Qualcomm is said to be cutting jobs in an effort to reduce costs. A new report from Bloomberg this afternoon says that Qualcomm is cutting its workforce as part of “cost reductions.”

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Update: President Trump has blocked Broadcom’s takeover of Qualcomm, citing national security concerns.

Some 13 years after Intel turned down the opportunity to make the CPU for the upcoming iPhone, it is now considering the world’s biggest ever tech acquisition to deal with the threat that decision continues to pose today.

In 2005, when Apple was working on the first-generation iPhone to be launched in 2007, Steve Jobs invited Intel to pitch for the CPU business for the planned smartphone. Not believing Apple’s sales projections, and not seeing any way to make money from it, Intel turned him down …

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Qualcomm has settled its differences with Samsung over its chip licensing practices, and says that it hopes to do the same with Apple.

While there were no lawsuits between Qualcomm and Samsung, the Korean company had been opposing the chipmaker’s appeal against a Fair Trade Commission anti-trust ruling …

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As rumored yesterday, the EU announced a 997 million euro fine to be imposed on Qualcomm, approximately $1.2 billion dollars, which makes cellular baseband chips inside most iPhones. The EU says Qualcomm bribed Apple with billions of dollars in rebate payments to make Apple not use chips from competing manufacturers, reducing competition from other manufacturers in the LTE baseband chip industry.

The fine is a hefty levy against Qualcomm’s bottom line, which recorded $20 billion in total revenue last year, although it is subject to appeal so the final number might be less.

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The Financial Times reports that Qualcomm could face up to a $2 billion fine from a European watchdog for having an anticompetitive chip deal with Apple. The watchdog says that it will sue Qualcomm for paying Apple to buy all of its communication chipsets between 2011 and 2016.

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Qualcomm has said that its latest Bluetooth chip will allow future wireless in-ear headphones to become smaller, more reliable and smarter.

Reduced power consumption could allow headphones to give almost three times the battery-life of existing models – or, as seems more likely, allow manufacturers to maintain current playback times while shrinking the size of devices like AirPods …

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As its legal battle with Apple drags on, Qualcomm is also in the middle of battling the Federal Trade Commission in a separate case. Making things all the more complicated, a judge on Friday ordered sanctions against Apple in the FTC’s case against Qualcomm…

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Apple and Qualcomm’s legal battle continues to escalate. Qualcomm today announced that it is seeking an import ban on select variants of the iPhone 8 and iPhone X – Apple’s latest releases. The company has also filed three additional patent infringement lawsuits against Apple and says the company infringes on 16 patents…

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Qualcomm has long accused Apple of infringing its patents, but the latest twist to the saga reverses the position. In a new countersuit, Apple accuses Qualcomm of infringing its patents.

Qualcomm is accused of violating at least eight Apple patents in its Snapdragon 800 and 820 processors, which are used in both Samsung and Google Pixel phones …

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A new report today from KGI shares projections that the 2018 iPhones will include significantly faster baseband chips from Intel and Qualcomm, although Intel will be the main supplier.

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At an event in San Jose today, Qualcomm Technologies company, partnered with T-Mobile, demonstrated their latest step in the evolution of LTE. T-Mobile announced that LTE Advanced, which is the newest generation, and supported by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Gigabit LTE modems, is now live in 430 markets.

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Broadcom has made a $105B bid to buy fellow chipmaker and Apple supplier Qualcomm. When $25B of net debt is factored in, the deal is effectively worth $130B.

If the bid succeeded, it would not only be the biggest tech acquisition in history, but might also help resolve the long-running dispute between Qualcomm and Apple …

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Apple’s fight with Qualcomm isn’t cooling off anytime soon. Bloomberg reports that Qualcomm has filed a new lawsuit against Apple accusing it of helping Intel using Qualcomm code. Apple and Qualcomm have been in a messy legal dispute since the start of the year.

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Qualcomm today reported its fourth quarter earnings for 2017 and the numbers aren’t pretty. The company announced a nearly 90 percent drop in profits, while revenue fell 4.5 percent. While the company still beat expectations, it noted that numbers were plagued by its ongoing legal case with Apple…

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Industry players, such as Microsoft, have arrived in Hong Kong this week for Qualcomm’s 4G/5G Summit, an annual event to strategize and discuss trends and technology developments.

One of the topics of surefire interest revolves around Microsoft’s upcoming ARM-powered Windows 10 laptop. In a glimpse into its battery life potential, Microsoft’s Principal Group Program Manager for Connectivity Partners, Pete Bernard, told Trusted Reviews that he only needs to “charge it every couple of days or so.”

Having multi-day battery life on a real, full-featured laptop would indeed, as Bernard puts it, be a game-changing innovation. Yet, when you consider how much better Apple’s custom-designed silicon is compared to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chips, the possibilities for an ARM-powered Mac become all the more desirable.
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Apple and Qualcomm are currently engaged in a well-publicized and increasingly bitter legal battle over patents and licensing, but Qualcomm is still hopeful things will work themselves out. Speaking at the Wall Street Journal’s D.Live conference, Qualcomm CEO Steve Mollenkopf touted that Qualcomm has a “long history” of settling issues like the Apple one…

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