The Supreme Court of the United States has given its verdict on Apple’s appeal against Qualcomm concerning two patents related to features present on Apple brand devices. The Verge reports that the higher US court rejected this action considering that the two companies had reached an agreement on the issue in the past.
The patent case between Apple and Qualcomm: a five-year-old feud
It all started in 2017. Apple introduced new features on its computers, phones and tablets, including Auto Unlock. Thanks to this, users of Apple brand devices can unlock their MacBook and their iPhone without having to use a password or facial recognition. Qualcomm then considers that the Apple brand violates some of its technological patents (including this automatic unlocking feature) and is suing Apple in federal court in San Diego.
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In 2019, the two firms tried to find common ground by signing a $4.5 billion agreement, allowing Apple to continue using Qualcomm-designed chips in their latest iPhones. Thanks to this agreement, Apple can exploit several tens of thousands of Qualcomm patents.
Among all of these patents, Apple is challenging the validity of two of them with the Trademark Appeal and Judgment Board and the US Patent and Trademark Office. A few months later, the appeal board ruled in favor of Qualcomm, which did not please Apple, which appealed to the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals. The latter rejected this appeal in 2021, and as a result, Apple appealed to the United States Supreme Court, its latest all-out.
Apple’s appeal dismissed by the US Supreme Court
On June 27, 2022, the Supreme Court ruled, and dismisses Apple’s action against Qualcomm. She will no longer be able to sue for this reason. In order to defend itself, Apple told the Supreme Court that it was still at risk of being sued after 2025, when the agreement between the two parties expires. The company considers that since Qualcomm has already tried to sue it, nothing excludes that it will not try to do so again within four years. For its part, Qualcomm simply asked the judge to dismiss the appeal, stating that Apple had not suffered any specific damage through its fault.
Apple has been trying to break away from Qualcomm patents for several years now by designing its own chips, such as the M2 chip recently unveiled at WWDC 2022. On the other hand, Qualcomm does not hide its ambitions to offer electronic components always more efficient than those of Apple, even wishing to surpass the M2. This rivalry is therefore likely to worsen.