Compal, Hon Hai Precision/Foxconn, Pegatron, and Wistron have filed a countersuit against iPhone LTE modem supplier Qualcomm in an attempt to prevent Qualcomm from successfully forcing them to pay certain licensing fees related to the iPhone`s assembly (via Bloomberg). The move is a response to a lawsuit from May when Qualcomm sued the four suppliers for `breaching their license agreements` by failing to pay royalties on the use of Qualcomm`s technology in the assembly of Apple`s devices.
Now, in a court filing today, the four companies have claimed that Qualcomm is asking for payments `massively in excess` of what it would normally receive. If the countersuit is successful, Apple said that it could cost Qualcomm billions in refunded fees and damages. For the manufacturers` part, the companies described the Qualcomm suit as `yet another...anticompetitive scheme` by Qualcomm.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Apple is said to be covering the legal fees associated with the four manufacturers` defense, and that it would soon file a separate motion to combine the new countersuit with its own suit against Qualcomm, creating one unified case.
Apple´s key contention is that Qualcomm is asking the court to force the contract manufacturers to pay licensing fees due on iPhones above the level the chipmaker normally receives.
The manufacturers -- Compal, Hon Hai Precision and its Foxconn subsidiary, Pegatron Corp., and Wistron Corp. -- denied violating any payment agreements. They called the Qualcomm suit against them `yet another chapter of Qualcomm´s anticompetitive scheme to dominate modem chip markets, extract supracompetitive royalties, and break its commitments to license its cellular technology on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms.` Apple and its manufacturing partners have also responded to a separate Qualcomm court filing, in which the LTE modem supplier requested an injunction to force Apple`s iPhone manufacturers to k ...
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