Qualcomm execs fire back at Apple’s $1 billion lawsuit

Last week, we learned that Apple had launched a huge $1 billion lawsuit against Qualcomm over what the company deemed to be unfair licensing agreements. The US Federal Trade Commission was also suing Qualcomm for similar reasons. Since then, Qualcomm had its third quarter earnings call, during which company executives gathered around and discussed the Apple lawsuit, with Qualcomm's CEO in particular firing back.

During the call, Qualcomm CEO Steve Mollenkopf and Derek Aberle, the company's head of licensing painted Apple's lawsuit than nothing more than a money squeezing tactic. As Cnet reports, Mollenkopf said: “Apple's complaint contains a lot of assertions, but in the end, this is a commercial dispute over the price of intellectual property. They want to pay less for the fair value that Qualcomm has established in the marketplace for our technology, even though Apple has generated billions in profits from using that technology.”

After that, Aberle chipped in, adding that “if you peel apart all of the arguments Apple's making, we believe firmly they're all without merit”. He then went on to say that when it comes down to it “they essentially want to pay less for the technology they're using”.

Qualcomm just recently lost an anti-trust case in South Korea, costing the company close to $1 billion. Shortly after, the FTC began looking into Qualcomm's business practises within the US and once Apple got wind of this, they also filed a lawsuit. The case has not been to court yet but it seems like this legal battle could drag on for quite a while.

KitGuru Says: Qualcomm sound pretty confident about their chances with this lawsuit, even after losing a big anti-trust case. Either way, we will have to wait and see how it goes when this eventually makes its way to trial.

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