Apple has been involved with a lawsuit against Qualcomm for quite some time now, and with the recent defeat in the District Court of Munich, the company’s iPhone 7 and iPhone 8 models can no longer be in Germany’s stores because the company is charged with intellectual property infringement in the devices’ power saving mode.
The conflict between Apple and Qualcomm began since two years back when Apple accused Qualcomm of hiking up the prices for its modem chips more than it should, and in return Qualcomm responded by filing various lawsuits against Apple for IP violation.
With the current lawsuit, Apple’s stock price also fell by 2.5%, and while Apple is planning to appeal the ruling that will not be effective immediately, the iPhone 7 and iPhone 8 models will have to be temporarily suspended until further notice. However, the iPhone Xs, iPhone Xs Max and iPhone XR will remained unaffected. The iPhone 7 and iPhone 8 models might not be available in Apple retail stores in Germany, but one can still get the devices through carriers and other retailers in Germany, so it’s not a total wipeout of the models in the country.
Aside from the German case, Apple also faced infringement issues from both United States and China. The China case granted Qualcomm an injunction against Apple, which bans the import and sale of almost all the iPhone models in China, which has also caused Apple to lose 2% shares while Qualcomm gained 3% shares.
Seems like Apple is at the losing end in the battle against Qualcomm, but hopefully the older iPhone models will not be permanently banned.
