Apple Brings Back iPhone 7 and 8 in Germany, Forced to Use Qualcomm Chips
- Mehedi Hassan
- Feb 14, 2019
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Back in December, Apple stopped selling the iPhone 7 and iPhone 8 in Germany after the company lost a patent infringement lawsuit against Qualcomm. The Intel chips used on the devices were apparently infringing Qualcomm’s patents, and Apple was forced to stop selling the products immediately.
Starting today, the devices are making a come back in Germany.
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So what exactly is Apple doing to start selling the iPhone 7 and 8 in Germany once again? Well, you guessed it: the company is actually using Qualcomm’s chips instead of Intel’s.
Apple said “to ensure all iPhone models can again be available to customers in Germany, we have no choice but to stop using Intel chips and ship our phones with Qualcomm chips in Germany.” in a statement to WSJ.
Apple has been facing a lot of trouble from Qualcomm in recent times after both the companies fell off over Apple’s complaints against Qualcomm’s excessive licensing fees. Qualcomm even tried to ban iPhones in China, though Apple was quick to avoid the ban through a software fix. Apple later claimed that Qualcomm refused to sell the company its chips for the newest iPhones, and it could even delay a 5G iPhone if the company is forced to use Intel’s 5G chips, which aren’t coming out till 2020.
Conversation 5 comments
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dontbe evil
<p>nice to see apple beaten with their own style</p>
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provision l-3
<p class="ql-indent-1"><em>"</em><em style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">the company lost a patent infringement lawsuit against Qualcomm"</em></p><p><br></p><p>This didn't happened. The court ruling on the injunction was procedural (<span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"> insufficiently-substantiated denial)</span> and agnostic on the actual infringement allegation. The reason being that Qorvo, the maker of the offending chip, was required to submit their schematics to Qualcomm for review and declined to do so. They were willing to do provide them to a court appointed independent expert or to the court but argued that turning them over to a competitor would be disclosing trade secrets. </p><p><br></p><p>So the obviously conclusion is that a ruling of insufficient denial and patent infringement are a distinction without a difference but that isn't really accurate. First off, the ruling doesn't mean that Qualcomms patent is even valid. In addition, should Apple and Qorvo opt to disclose the chip schematics at a later date the court would be willing to hear the case and could rule against Qualcomm and consider the actual validity of their infringement claim. </p><p><br></p><p>Lastly, none of this is exculpatory either and the patent may very well have been infringed. </p>