Win for Qualcomm: China Bans iPhone Sales in The Country

The legal war between Qualcomm and Apple continues after the chipmaker accused Apple that features in its iOS violates some of its patents. The patents deal with how Apple resizes and formats images and how the system switches between the apps.

Patents which Apple has stopped paying royalties for, as the company considered that Qualcomm is over-charging for licensing.

Now, more recently, a Chinese court ruled that Apple will have to stop all of its sales of the models that feature the Qualcomm technology in China. That would mean that the  iPhone 6S, iPhone 6S Plus, iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus, iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, and iPhone X would get off the shelves. All of these phones use the technology Qualcomm accuses Apple of using without paying the licensing fees.

According to Apple though, all of its phone models are still on sale in mainland China and the company has filed an appeal with the Chinese court.

“Qualcomm’s effort to ban our products is another desperate move by a company whose illegal practices are under investigation by regulators around the world.”

– Apple

While this ‘win’ for Qualcomm does not represent the end of this legal battle, it’s worth noting that China, Hong Kong and Taiwan do account for about one-fifth of Apple’s market, with $265.6 billion in sales in the last fiscal year alone.

Though nothing much seems to change in this tug-of-war, in spite of this court ruling, we’re pretty sure the legal teams of both companies will keep pulling and pushing for what looks like a very long time.