Chipmaker Qualcomm and Apple have been exchanging blows in the courtroom over patents recently, and one of the cases has gone to trial already.
San Diego based Qualcomm won the case and due to that Apple has decided to pull both iPhone 7 and iPhone 8 from its own stores. Third party retailers will still be selling the devices.
In the court case Qualcomm claimed that Apple was infringing the company's patents on power saving. The District Court of Munich agreed, and even though Apple is planning on an appeal, they've pulled the phones from the Apple Stores both offline and online.
The issue is with hardware, a chip made by Qorvo, so there isn't an easy software update to fix it. Fortunately for Apple the newer models like iPhone X or XS do not have the same chip.
In the U.S., Qorvo's chip has been determined to not infringe on Qualcomm's patent portfolio.
This isn't the first time Apple has suffered losses against Qualcomm in the courtroom. However, in China the issue was with software and Apple was able to patch it.
Written by: Matti Robinson @ 21 Dec 2018 11:24
