What started as a rough week for Qualcomm simply got worse. Apple is spilled onto the cause train simply earlier than the weekend, following within the U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s footsteps with a roughly billion-dollar suit against the San Diego-based mobile chipmaker.
Apple was specifically named within the recent FTC filing, that suspect Qualcomm of engaging in Associate in Nursing anti-competitive “no license, no chips” policy, that jacked up licensing fees on patents and compelled phone manufacturers to pay additional for exploitation competitors’ processors.
In the words of the FTC earlier this week:
Qualcomm precluded Apple from sourcing baseband processors from Qualcomm’s competitors from 2011 to 2016. Qualcomm recognized that any competitor that won Apple’s business would become stronger, and used exclusivity to prevent Apple from working with and improving the effectiveness of Qualcomm’s competitors.
Apple’s own $1 billion suit accuses Qualcomm of charging for patents “they have nothing to do with,” citing TouchID, displays, and cameras as categories where the component maker has allegedly stifled innovation by making licensing more costly.
The suit follows a number of other international legal proceedings for Qualcomm across the world, including large fines in South Korea and China. We’ve reached out to the company for comment.