Qualcomm and Apple Make Peace, Agree to Drop All Litigation
Qualcomm and Apple today announced an agreement to dismiss all litigation between the two companies worldwide.
The settlement includes an unknown payment from Apple to Qualcomm. The companies also have reached a six-year license agreement, effective as of April 1, 2019, including a two-year option to extend, and a multiyear chipset supply agreement. This supply agreement could include Qualcomm's 5G chips, although the companies have not confirm this.
All the litigation between the companies around the world will be dismissed.
The two companies have been in a legal battle over billions of dollars of technology licensing fees that had threatened to reshape the chipmaker’s business.
The two sides began a jury trial Monday in San Diego that was to decide whether Apple owed Qualcomm unpaid royalties or the iPhone maker was right to argue that it was the victim of unfairly inflated charges.
Qualcomm is still waiting for a federal judge’s ruling on claims by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission that the company’s licensing practices are anti-competitive. The regulator accused Qualcomm in a 2017 lawsuit of using its dominance in the smartphone technology market to thwart competitors’ growth and force companies including Apple and Huawei Technologies to pay inflated patent royalties. A nonjury trial in San Jose, California, was held in January.