The Fuzhou Immediate People's Court in China, on Monday banned the
import and sales of select iPhones, following a lawsuit Qualcomm filed against
Apple.
According to the law suite filled, the mobile chip manufacturer claimed
Apple violated its patents, and the company demanded an injunctive relief over
the misuse of its IP.
Due to the court ruling, Apple had to pull out her phones from
iPhone 6s all the way to iPhone X, but didn't include the 2018 iPhone models
that they are not affected by the ruling. However, the chipset maker thinks
otherwise and now files for an injunction of the iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max and
iPhone XR in China in its next court battle with Apple.
Following the ban on its products, Apple warned that the ban would
hurt Chinese manufacturers like Foxconn, and at the same time renders 5 million
of Chinese citizen jobless across its supply chain.
Qualcomm which is the biggest provider of mobile chips in the
world, and it gets a portion of revenue from licensing its technologies to
hundred of device makers. Now Qualcomm charges phone manufacturers based on the
device's value rather than the component.
Qualcomm owns patents related to 3G and 4G phones. Thus, phone
manufacturers that build 3G and 4G capable phones will have to pay a licensing
fee to Qualcomm even if they don't use their chips. And that also applies to
Apple who wants to pay for the chip and not the entire value of the phone.