Qualcomm is Demanding Apple Pay Fines for Still Selling Banned iPhones in Germany

BY Evan Selleck

Published 31 Jan 2019

Apple Australia

Apple was told to stop selling specific iPhone models in Germany last year. The company already ran afoul of that court order once, in the form of a press release.

And now Qualcomm is still swinging at Apple, saying that the company is still selling those banned iPhone models in third-party retailers — both authorized and not. However, Qualcomm also alleges that Apple sold those iPhone models in its official retail stores as early as the beginning of this month, too.

Qualcomm’s lawyer, Don Rosenberg, is telling the German court that Apple is intentionally ignoring the court order handed down against it in 2018. He goes on to say that Apple does not consider itself “bound by the injunction”, and will continue to do as it sees fit in Germany despite a court order that’s supposed to dictate which devices it can sell.

As a result of all that, Bloomberg reports that Qualcomm is seeking “significant fines” against Apple. Qualcomm once again pointed to the press release that Apple released back in December, which stated, in plain language, that the infringing iPhone 7 and iPhone 8 models were still on sale from certain retailers in Germany. Apple already retracted that press release, but Qualcomm says that wasn’t good enough to actually get Apple to change its selling practices in the region.

This is a battle between two giant companies that is not going to go quietly into the night by any means.

[via Bloomberg]