Oliver Haslam on October 14, 2017, 3:31 am

Good Luck With That: Qualcomm Files To Block iPhone Manufacturing And Sales In China

Apple’s ongoing legal spat with Qualcomm shows no sign of letting up after the chip manufacturer files a lawsuit against the iPhone maker, this time in China.

Qualcomm is seeking that Apple be prevented from building or selling its smartphones in the country.

The battle between the two giants has been ongoing since way back in January, when the FTC accused Qualcomm of forcing Apple to pay higher royalties for the use of its baseband chips when compared with other companies. Apple itself followed that up with a $1 billion lawsuit of its own, withholding royalty payments to Qualcomm ever since this mess began to unfold. Qualcomm is now on the attack, going after Apple at source in an attempt to prevent its iPhones from being built.

Qualcomm Inc. filed lawsuits in China seeking to ban the sale and manufacture of iPhones in the country, the chipmaker’s biggest shot at Apple Inc. so far in a sprawling and bitter legal fight, Bloomberg News reports.

Back in May, Qualcomm attempted to have Apple’s iPhones banned from being imported into the United States over the dispute, something which has obviously not happened. Qualcomm clearly wants to hit Apple hard, and there are fewer more powerful ways of doing that than by trying to prevent the iPhone from being sold in the company’s home country. Stopping those iPhones from being built in the first place, now that’s one way of going about it. That is where the latest round of legal tit-for-tat comes in.

We said the last time we told you about Qualcomm’s falling out with Apple that we did not expect either side to kiss and make up any time soon, and this latest development just reiterates the fact that things are very likely to get worse between the two before they get better.

For what’s worth, Samsung, Google and Microsoft have all taken Apple’s side in this dispute against Qualcomm.