iPhone Manufacturers Join Apple's Fight Against Qualcomm

Apple and its Asian contract manufacturers are hitting back at Qualcomm with legal claims that try to undermine the chipmaker’s attempt to force them to pay licensing fees, according to Bloomberg.

Qualcomm is asking for payments in excess of what it would normally receive, Apple, Compal, Hon Hai and others said in court filings. If successful, the counter-claims could cost Qualcomm billions of dollars in refunded fees and damages, Apple said.

Qualcomm said that it had filed two new patent-infringement suits against Apple, this time in Germany. The patents, for ways to transmit information without draining battery life, are the European counterparts to those that are part of a case Qualcomm filed with a trade agency in Washington seeking to halt imports of Apple products into the U.S. market.

The filings, in California as well as Germany, represent the latest escalation in the dispute between Apple and  Qualcomm over fees on all modern phones, even if the device doesn’t have one of Qualcomm's chips. That revenue stream has made it one of the richest companies in the industry.

The contract manufacturers, which were dragged into the fight when Qualcomm sued them separately for payments owed by Apple, are now siding with the iPhone maker to make sure they’re not saddled with the fees.

In separate filings, the manufacturers and Apple also objected to a Qualcomm request that the handset makers be forced to continue making payments while the dispute continues. There’s no harm to Qualcomm waiting to get paid until the court determines the correct amount, they said.