Apple on Wednesday held an event to say it's expanding in San Diego by building a new office in the city and hiring 1,200 engineers over the next three years.

"San Diego will become a principle engineering hub for Apple with new positions distributed across a number of specialty engineering fields, to include both hardware and software technologies," said Apple Vice President for Global Real Estate Kristina Raspe. "On behalf of our CEO, Tim Cook, we're thrilled to be in San Diego and look forward to making our contribution to San Diego's future."

Raspe said Apple already has 600 employees in San Diego County, and will add 170 of the additional employees by the end of the year.

Meanwhile, Apple and Qualcomm are duking it out over patents in a courtroom in San Diego. The mobile chipmaker has accused Apple of infringing on three of its patents in some versions of the iPhone.

Beyond that, Apple and Qualcomm have been engaged in a wide-ranging legal fight. The two are also battling over patent licenses.