Qualcomm Feels Smartphone Squeeze

Rick Merritt, SiliconValley Bureau Chief
EETimes (1/21/2017 02:00 AM EST)

The salad days of the smartphone era are over, now stakeholders are fighting over pieces of red meat.

Apple is suing Qualcomm for $1 billion in damages from unfair patent practices. The suit filed January 20 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California was widely reported by Reuters and other sources.

In a press statement quoted in a Forbes article, Apple said, “after years of disagreement over what constitutes a fair and reasonable royalty we have no choice left but to turn to the courts.”

Companies hate to go to court. It’s expensive and business details they would prefer to remain confidential get revealed to the public. But as growth slows, the pressure for profits rises so it was perhaps just a matter of time before royalties became a battleground.

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