Qualcomm Just Made The Battle Between It and Apple Even Bigger

Qualcomm just filed a lawsuit against four Apple manufacturers for withholding on royalty payments. The chipmaker and Apple have been in a long dispute over licensing and the dispute just got even bigger.

Pegatron Corp., Wistron Corp., Foxconn Technology Group, and Compal Electronic Inc. are the four contract manufacturers listed in the lawsuits.

According to Qualcomm, Apple had advised these companies to withold royalty payments and even agreed to compensate the companies if they incur any damages resulting from the breach of agreements with Qualcomm.

It was just last month that Apple said it would withold royalty payments for sales made in the first quarter until the dispute with Qualcomm was resolved. The company has been fighting with Qualcomm for over fie years to reach a licensing agreement.

Back in January Apple sued Qualcomm and said the company overcharged for chips and has refused to pay $1 billion in rebates that have been promised.

Qualcomm filed the lawsuits in the United States District Court for the Southern District of California.

“While not disputing their contractual obligations to pay for the use of Qualcomm’s inventions, the manufacturers say they must follow Apple’s instructions not to pay,” Qualcomm stated.

According to Qualcomm, Apple is trying to make the company agree to a “unreasonable demand for a below-market direct license”.

Disclaimer: We have no position in QUALCOMM, Inc. (NASDAQ: QCOM) nor Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) and have not been compensated for this article.