Apple and Qualcomm have confirmed they have come to a settlement in the on-going year-long legal battle. The development is indicated by Apple publishing a release on their website, highlighting the fact that the two companies have reached a licensing settlement.
The legal proceedings started from January 2017, when the Federal Trade Commission filed a case against Qualcomm that partly leaned on Apple’s contentions. Apple argued that Qualcomm was charging too much for patent licensing. After Apple shifted to using Intel chips, the F.T.C. alleged that Qualcomm was able to charge unfairly large royalties because handset makers had no leverage to negotiate, especially because Qualcomm supplied two types of chips and could cut off shipments if the buyers balked at paying royalties. Three days after the F.T.C. filed its case, Apple separately sued Qualcomm.
In a joint statement, Apple and Qualcomm said that they had agreed to dismiss all litigation between them worldwide. They added that they had reached a six-year arrangement for Apple to pay unspecified royalties on Qualcomm’s patents
The chip maker said, “It expected the settlement to yield incremental revenue of $2 shares as shipments of Apple handsets affected by the settlement grow. At roughly 1.2 billion Qualcomm shares outstanding, that would translate to around $2.5 billion in additional revenue from a combination of royalties and chips.”
