Qualcomm has been dealing with legal battle after legal battle these last few years over the company’s business practices. Most have dealt with the way they handle patent licenses and the ones happening lately focus on how they’re reportedly violating antitrust laws in various countries around the world. The company has had a lawsuit filed against them from Apple as well, only to have Qualcomm turn around and file a complaint against Apple and requesting to have sales of their products blocked.
This latest patent complaint from Qualcomm against Apple has been filed with the ITC (International Trade Commission) and the US District Court for the Southern District of California. Qualcomm alleges that Apple is infringing on 6 of their patents and says each of them are vital to iPhone’s functions. So while they’re asking for the court system to try the case and assess the damages, they’ve asked the ITC to investigate the issue and hopefully get a Limited Exclusion Order (LEO) to ban the importation of infringing iPhones and iPads.
This is where the Computer & Communications Industry Association has just stepped in. The CCIA is a lobbying group that represents a large number of tech companies such as Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, Intel, Samsung and more. They have just issued a formal request for the United States International Trade Commission that would reject Qualcomm’s request to ban the import on the iPhones and iPads that allegedly infringe on those six patents from Qualcomm.
The lobbying group claims that banning the imports of these devices would encourage and enable Qualcomm’s anti-competitive behavior even further. The ITC isn’t even slated to start the investigation until August while the US federal courts will be looking into the lawsuit sometime next year.
It should be noted that while the Computer & Communications Industry Association does represent a number of companies involved in Android, that doesn’t specifically mean that they are for or against this request.
Source: Computer & Communications Industry Association
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