Apple Sues Motorola Over Use of Qualcomm Chips in iPhone 4S
Apple on Friday filed suit against Motorola Mobility in a U.S. district court over the use of Qualcomm chips in Apple's iPhone 4S.
The appeal to the Southern District of California court has a bit of a twist. The iPhone maker isn't claiming that Motorola is infringing on Apple's own patented technology. Rather, Apple is suing Motorola Mobility for breach of contract with regards to Motorola's own IP, which is used by Qualcomm in its MDM6610 baseband processors. Apple is asking the court to bar Motorola from suing Apple in Germany for using those chips in its latest iPhone.
The suit in U.S. district court follows a ruling in Germany on Friday that dismissed one of Motorola's more general claims regarding Apple's use of 3G/UMTS wireless technology.
Apple says in its U.S. filing that it has been assured by Qualcomm that "Qualcomm has already paid Motorola for the licenses and covenants for Qualcomm and its customers, including Apple."
At stake is Motorola's claim in Europe that Apple has infringed on its patent. Apple claims that Motorola's declaration to the European Telecommunications Standards Institute ("ETSI") that the technology is essential to practicing the ETSI's GPRS standard makes this a matter of what's called "fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory" or FRAND licensing.
What that means, according to Apple, is that Motorola is in breach of a commitment to FRAND licensing, which is an agreement by companies owning standards-setting technology to extend licensing under fair terms to rivals when technology essential to a meeting a standard could be withheld to block market access.
"Apple believes that parties who commit to license their standards= essential patents on FRAND terms have obligations they cannot ignore, evade, or apply only prospectively after an abuse has occurred," Apple's lawsuit states.
In earlier litigation brought by Motorola last spring against Apple in Germany for alleged infringement on its GPRS-related technology, Motorola makes no mention of the iPhone 4S, which hadn't been released yet. But in a January 2012 response to an Apple appeal, Motorola did reference the iPhone 4S, claiming it was subject to a German court's December order to Apple to cease and desist selling products infringing on Motorola's patent.
But Apple's counter-claim Friday holds that the contract between Motorola and Qualcomm includes a covenant Motorola made to not sue Qualcomm customers for infringement of the patent in question. As a third-party beneficiary of that contract, Apple contends it cannot and should not be sued by Motorola in any jurisdiction.
For the top stories in tech, follow us on Twitter at @PCMag.Qualcomm unveils 2 new Dual-core 1 GHz Snapdragon S4 chipsets
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These chipsets will be available on Qualcomm’s third generation Qualcomm Reference Design (QRD) development platform in the first half of 2012 and also as standalone chipsets. The QRD ecosystem program is designed to help device manufacturers developing products for regions where the networks are evolving from 2G to 3G and popular smartphone markets. QRD development platforms based on both the MSM7x27A and MSM7x25A chipsets are currently available.
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Srivatsan Sridhar is a Mobile Technology Enthusiast who is passionate about Mobile phones and Mobile apps. His current phone include Sony Ericsson Xperia X10. You can follow him on Twitter @ssrivatsan and on Google+